'",',••"  V,    '  ■'■   '  ' 


'/■^y-  ... 


RURAL  LIFE  IN 
LITCHFIELD   COUNTY 


RURAL   IJI  !•:   IX 
LITCHFIKLD   COl  XTV 


BY 

CHARLES  SIIKPHl.RI)    PIII.I.PS 


PUBLISHED  UNDER  THE  AUSPICES  OF 

THK    F^ITCFIFI  HI.  n    COUNTY 
U  NI  VKRSirV    CLt' H 

NORFOLK,   CONNECTICUT 
I917 


/- 


Copyright,  191 7,  by 

Charles  Shepherd  Phelps 


This  volume  forms  part  of  a  series  published  under 
the  auspices  of  the  Litchfield  County  University  Club, 
and  in  accordance  with  a  proposition  made  to  the  club 
bv  one  of  its  members,  Carl  Stocckclof  Norfolk, Conn. 

Howard  VVii.liston  Carter, 

Setrftary. 


(!(;37Sti 


CONTKNTS 

CMAl'TER  I\(,l 

I     Topography  and  Sou 3 

II  P'iRST   SkTTI  FRS   AND   K\RI.V    HoMI     IaFK       .         .         .  I4 

III  Field  and  (iarden  Crops  in  the  P'ari.y  Days  u 

IV  Farming  Tools  and  Imim.fmints  .  43 
V  Friits  and  Friit  (Growing       .      .                         .  ^i 

VI     Cattle  and  the  Dairy h4 

VII  Sheep  and  Wooi 81 

VIII  The  Modern  Farm 98 

IX  Country  Life,  Old  AND  Ni:\v  .      .  108 

X  Country  Community  Progress  ik* 

XI  A  Pioneer  IN  Agricii  TIB  Ai  Fducation  .            .  130 


TO 

THE  FARM  HOMES  NESTLED  AMONG  THE 

HILLS   OF  OLD  LITCHFIELD,  THIS 

BOOK  IS  AFFECTIONATELY 

DEDICATED 


RURAL  LIFE  IN 
LITCHFIELD  COUNTY 


CHAPTKR  I 


TOPOGRAPHY   AND  SOIL 

■i^^^X    the  northwest  corner  of  the  State  of 

^!^i  Connecticut  are  twenty-six  towns,  one  for 

^rfi  ^vVJ^  ^' ich  letter  in  the  alphabet,  and  taken  to- 

S^  r'^i  ^'^■^^^''"  ^^^'-'y  constitute  Litchfield  County. 

^^_  *?  ^'*    Ir  is  the  largest  county  in  the  State,  the 


area  being  about  88;  square  miles.  It  was  organized 
in  175  I  as  the  fifth  county  in  the  State,  although  it  had 
been  settled  many  years  before.  Within  the  bounds  of 
the  county  are  found  the  highest  land,  the  greatest  lake 
area,  the  most  rugged  scenery,  and  some  of  the  richest 
agricultural  lands  of  the  State.  The  highest  point  of 
land  was  for  a  long  time  a  matter  of  dispute,  but  that 
designation  is  now  given  to  Bear  Mountain,  in  the  town 
of  Salisbury.  This  mountain  reaches  an  elevation  of 
2355  feet  above  sea  level,  and  there  are  a  number  of 

:3] 


RURAL  LIFE  IN  LITCHFIELD  COUNTY 

other  near-by  points  which  come  close  to  the  two-thou- 
sand mark.  While  it  was  at  first  supposed  that  Norfolk 
contained  the  highest  point  of  land  in  the  county,  the 
topographical  surveys  made  at  the  instigation  of  Rob- 
bins  Battell  gave  the  palm  to  Bear  Mountain.  Later 
Mr.  Battell  caused  to  be  erected  a  monument  to  mark 
the  spot,  thus  permanently  designating  the  highest  point 
of  land  in  the  State. 

Some  of  the  cultivated  lands  of  the  county  lie  at  an 
elevation  of  1200  to  1500  feet,  while  much  of  the  best 
agricultural  lands  are  at  a  considerable  elevation, 
notably  in  the  towns  of  Goshen,  Litchfield,  Morris, 
Bridgewater  and  Washington.  The  fact  that  a  settle- 
ment was  begun  on  a  hilltop  made  very  little  difference 
to  the  settlers,  for  they  could  produce  only  about  enough 
to  supply  the  home  demands  and  there  was  little  travel 
from  town  to  town.  But  now  the  question  of  marketing 
crops  has  become  a  more  serious  one  to  many  of  the 
hilltop  farmers,  for  they  are  sometimes  at  loss  to  know 
what  can  be  grown  that  will  market  to  the  best  advan- 
tage. Improved  highways,  however,  are  slowly  solving 
this  problem,  and  this,  together  with  the  automobile, 
will  soon  make  a  distance  of  five  to  eight  miles,  for  the 
hauling  of  crops  to  market,  seem  but  a  slight  drawback. 

The  mountains  on  the  western  border  of  the  county 
are  often  spoken  of  as  the  foothills  of  the  Berkshires 
and  are  of  the  same  general  type,  being  thickly  wooded 

142 


TOPOGRAPHY  WD  Soil 

with  fine  forests  on  the  lower  slopes  and  rocky  aiul 
covered  with  scrub  oak  and  yellow  pine  towards  the 
summits.  Many  elevated  areas  probably  never  will 
be  of  much  agricultural  value  except  for  forestry,  be- 
cause of  their  inaccessibility  and  the  shallowness  of  the 
soil.  On  the  mountains  that  are  frequently  burned 
over  there  arc  often  tracts  of  the  native  low  blueberry 
and  the  huckleberr)',  not  perhaps  regarded  as  a  strictly 
agricultural  product,  but  one  that  certainly  adds  to  the 
income  of  the  hill  towns. 

The  soil  in  general  is  what  is  known  as  glacial  drift 
or  till.  Ihere  is  ample  evidence  of  glacial  action 
throughout  the  county,  in  the  polished  ledges  cut  with 
furrows,  in  the  smooth  boulders  scattered  everywhere, 
in  the  steep-sided  kettle  holes,  and  especially  in  the  uni- 
versal mix-up  of  the  soils,  liut  no  outcome  of  the 
glacial  forces  adds  more  to  the  beauty  of  the  country 
than  the  numerous  lakes.  There  are  over  a  thousand 
lakes  in  Connecticut,  and  of  these  Litchfield  County  has 
the  greatest  surface.  Bantam  Lake,  lying  in  the  towns 
of  Litchfteld  and  Morris,  being  the  largest.  In  the 
town  of  Salisbury  lie  the  Twin  Lakes,  which,  if  they 
had  not  built  a  barrier  and  divided  themselves  into 
two  lakes,  would  be  almost  as  large  as  Bantam.  In  the 
town  of  Warren  is  Lake  Waramaug,  in  Kent  are  the 
Spectacle  Ponds,  in  Canaan  and  Norfolk  is  Lake  Wan- 
gum,  and  in  Winchester  is  Highland  Lake.      1  he  lakes 

:5] 


RURAL  LIFE  IN  LITCHFIELD  COUNTY 

of  the  single  town  of  Salisbury  cover  nearly  1700  acres 
and  afford  natural  beauty  spots  as  well  as  popular  sum- 
mer resorts. 

In  many  places  in  the  county  will  be  found  extensive, 
low,  peaty  tracts  of  land,  that  once  represented  lake 
areas,  but  which  have  been  filling  in  for  thousands  of 
years  by  the  slow  growth  and  decay  of  vegetation.  In 
some  instances  such  areas  still  have  a  small  lake  or  pond 
near  the  center,  as  in  the  case  of  Beeslick  Pond  in  Salis- 
bury. During  the  slow  processes  of  time,  water-weeds 
crept  into  these  old  lakes,  peat  moss  and  bushes  reached 
out  from  the  shallow  water  at  the  edge,  and  in  the 
course  of  many  years  the  lake  was  transformed  into 
a  mere  bog,  rich  in  all  kinds  of  botanical  treasures. 
After  many  more  years,  as  the  outcome  of  changes  due 
to  tillage  and  drainage,  it  may  have  become  a  good 
piece  of  mowing  land. 

In  mountainous  regions  there  are  sure  to  be  brooks, 
and  wherever  there  are  mountain  brooks  there  ravines 
will  be  found.  In  the  hills  of  Litchfield  County  are 
found  some  of  the  wildest,  most  picturesque  ravines 
in  New  England.  Kent  Falls  ravine  is  of  peculiar 
beauty,  carved  as  it  is  partly  out  of  white  limestone.  On 
the  banks  and  limestone  ledges  grow  the  most  graceful 
of  ferns — the  Cystopteris  hiilhifera,  or  bladder  fern; 
while  the  abundance  of  the  Camptosorus  rhizophylliis, 
or  walking  fern,  is  a  delight  to  the  botanist. 

[6: 


TOPOGRAIMIV   WD  SOIL 

Of  Sage's  Ravine  I  will  give  two  coinrncnts  made  by 
Henry  Ward  Beecher.  "If  this  were  in  Colorailo  a 
safe  path  would  be  cut  along  the  bank  and  it  would  be 
the  show  place  of  the  region."  "Never  have  I  climbed 
a  more  wild  or  beautiful  ravine.  It  is  dangerous,  too." 
Those  who  have  followed  it  to  its  head,  clinging  to  the 
roots  of  trees,  along  the  wall  at  the  foot  of  the  falls,  to 
cross  the  little  side  ravine,  will  appreciate  the  danger  of 
the  clinib,  but  lovers  of  the  beautifully  wild  will  lind 
above  the  falls  even  more  beauty  than  below. 

The  principal  rivers  of  the  county  are  the  Housa- 
tonic,  the  Xaugatuck,  the  Shepaug  and  their  tributaries, 
which  drain  the  county  from  north  to  south,  and  the 
Farmington  and  its  tributaries  on  the  east.  The  larger 
rivers  offer  many  advantages  to  the  manufacturers  and 
have  afforded  the  natural  resources  for  building  up 
prosperous  towns  and  boroughs  that  have  developed  a 
variety  of  industries.  This  diversity  of  industries  has 
had  an  important  bearing  on  the  agricultural  develop- 
ment of  the  county,  for  the  most  prosperous  agriculture 
is  always  found  near  good  markets.  In  the  past  many 
of  the  smaller  streams  afforded  power  for  operating 
numerous  small  industries  that  were  closely  linked  with 
the  agriculture  of  the  county,  such  as  tanneries,  woolen 
mills,  wagon  shops,  cheese-box  factories,  nail  and 
scythe  works  and  so  forth.  The  concentration  of  these 
various  industries  into  big  central  plants  has  changed 

[7] 


RURAL  LIFE  IN  LITCHFIELD  COUNTY 

the  entire  life  of  many  rural  towns.  The  time  will 
again  come  when  these  numerous  small  waterfalls  will 
be  harnessed  to  provide  electric  power  and  light  for 
many  farm  homes,  and  thus  they  will  again  be  of  value. 

Of  the  forests  that  clothed  this  region  when  it  was 
first  settled  scarcely  a  vestige  remains.  Until  recently 
there  was  a  bit  of  what  might  be  called  primeval  forest 
in  Colebrook,  but  even  this  has  not  been  spared  the 
woodman's  axe.  On  the  mountains  there  are  a  few 
spots  too  steep  and  inaccessible  to  be  lumbered,  and  here 
we  still  find  a  few  forest  giants.  But  the  hills  are  cov- 
ered with  pine,  chestnut  and  birch,  in  spice  of  frequent 
cuttings  and  forest  fires.  Wherever  we  go  up  and  down 
throughout  the  county,  there  is  forest  beauty  every- 
where. Perhaps  the  most  notable  example  of  the 
preservation  of  the  stately  monarchs  of  the  forest  is  to 
be  found  on  the  Calhoun  estate  in  Cornwall.  Here 
may  be  seen  a  beautiful  grove  of  pines,  many  trees  of 
which  tower  majestically  a  hundred  feet  or  more  in 
height  and  have  trunks  three  to  four  feet  in  diameter. 
A  botanist,  rushing  through  the  county  on  the  train, 
noted  the  abundance  of  paper  birches.  "It  Is  a  good 
country,"  he  commented,  "for  paper  birches  do  not 
thrive  on  poor  soil."  This  is  true,  and  though  the  soils 
of  the  county  are  extremely  varied,  yet  the  strictly  agri- 
cultural lands  are  second  to  none. 

The  soils  of  the  hill  country,  and  in  general  those 
[8] 


ToponRAPiiv  WD  son. 

outside  the  river  valleys,  urc  composed  of  glacial  drift 
vaning  in  fineness  from  coarse  boulders  and  small  peb- 
bles down  to  tine  sand  and  silty  clays,  these  materials 
being  mixed  in  widely  varying  proportions.  These  soils 
were,  without  doubt,  formed  by  the  slow  grinding, 
scraping  and  pushing  action  of  powerful  glaciers,  which 
in  prehistoric  times  moved  slowly  over  the  whole  region 
in  a  southwesterly  direction.  In  many  instances  the 
powerful  movement  of  the  glaciers  broke  off  and  car- 
ried along  massive  boulders  which  lodged  on  the  higher 
hills,  and  many  fields  were  left  so  densely  studded  with 
small  boulders  as  to  make  plowing  almost  impossible. 
In  general,  there  is  one  type  of  soil  on  most  of  the 
higher  lands  of  the  county.  This  soil  has  been  formed 
by  the  breaking  down  of  rocks  of  granitic  type.  For 
many  miles  to  the  north  the  rocks  are  of  the  same  gen- 
eral class  as  those  on  the  higher  lands  of  this  county, 
and  the  bulk  of  the  glaciated  material  is  supposed  to 
have  been  transported  not  more  than  ten  to  fifteen 
miles.  When  the  granitic  type  of  rock  becomes  weath- 
ered it  makes  a  close-textured,  clayey  soil,  which  is  usu- 
ally more  or  less  studded  with  bouhlers.  These  soils 
arc  typical  hay  and  pasture  soils,  and  Litchfield  County 
has  always  been  noted  as  a  good  hay  and  grazing  coun- 
try. Soils  of  this  type  are  retentive  of  moisture  and 
manure,  and  furnish  liberal  amounts  of  the  elements 
needed   in   the   growth   of   grasses,   clover   and   most 

119] 


RURAL  LIFE  L\  LITCHFIELD  COUNTY 

cereals.  In  the  earlier  days  the  county  was  noted  for 
its  fine  quality  of  cheese  and  butter,  as  it  is  now  for  its 
milk,  and  much  of  these  higher  lands  are  dotted  over 
with  rich  dairy  farms. 

Another  class  of  soils  is  that  found  in  the  river  val- 
leys, known  as  the  alluvial  soils  and  the  terrace  gravel. 
In  general  these  soil  areas  are  limited  in  extent  owing 
to  the  narrowness  of  the  valleys.  The  lower  portion  of 
the  valleys  represents  soils  of  a  sandy  loam  type,  gen- 
erally free  from  boulders.  These  are  known  as  alluvial 
soils  and  are  composed  of  gritty  particles  of  rock  which 
settled  out  of  comparatively  still  water,  while  the  finer, 
silty  material  was  carried  to  the  seas.  Along  the  bor- 
ders of  the  valleys  are  found  terraces  of  gravel  and 
coarse  sand  which  were  formed  by  the  rapidly  moving 
waters. 

Following  the  great  glacial  epoch,  our  rivers  were 
many  times  their  present  size,  probably  filling  what  now 
represents  the  river  valleys.  In  some  cases  these  river 
valleys  were  dammed  by  rock  barriers,  causing  great 
lakes  which  later  were  drained  out  by  the  wearing  away 
of  the  barriers.  One  of  these  ancient  lakes  seems  to 
have  covered  the  upper  Housatonic  valley,  extending 
from  a  natural  barrier  at  Falls  Village  to  the  northern 
part  of  SheflSeld,  Massachusetts,  with  a  great  arm  ex- 
tending up  the  Blackberry  River  valley  nearly  to  West 
Norfolk.      Another,    with    little    doubt,    covered    the 


TOPOGRAIMIV    \\I)  SOU 

fertile  Pomperaug  valley  at  the  south  side  of  the  county. 
Into  these  vast  deep-water  areas  were  washed  fine  par- 
ticles of  rock  materials  from  many  sources,  thus  making 
soils  with  a  great  variety  ot  mineral  compounds  and  of 
a  fine  sandy  texture.  These  soils  now  constitute  some 
of  the  richest  farm  lands  of  the  county.  Near  what 
must  have  been  the  shores  of  these  old  lake  areas  will 
be  found  deltas  and  beaches  that  constitute  plateaus  of 
coarser  sandy  or  gravelly  material.  Such  areas  must 
have  been  formed  by  the  swift  inflowing  rivers  or  the 
lashing  waves.  fhese  soils  are  more  sandy  and  less 
fertile  than  those  that  were  formed  beneath  the  deeper 
waters  of  the  lake. 

In  the  larger  river  valleys,  such  as  the  I  lousatonic, 
the  Farmington,  the  Xaugatuck  and  the  Shepaug,  will 
also  be  found  soil  areas  formed  similarly  to  those  just 
mentioned.  The  extent  of  these  areas  depends  on  the 
width  of  the  valleys  and  the  volume  and  the  velocity  of 
the  water  of  those  early  times.  For  example,  the 
Xaugatuck  River  on  the  east,  while  it  was  probably 
many  times  as  large  as  now,  apparently  always  had  a 
rapid  movement,  and  flowed  over  very  hard  rocks,  and 
these  two  factors  tended  to  prevent  the  formation  of  a 
wide  and  fertile  valley.  On  the  other  hand,  the  waters 
of  the  Housatonic  represented  a  larger  volume  and 
passed  over  rock  formations  which  were  not  especially 
hard,  and  so  the  conditions  were  more  favorable  for 


RURAL  LIFE  IN  LITCHFIELD  COUNTY 

carving  out  a  wide  river  valley.  These  valley  soils,  al- 
though fine  in  texture,  are  rarely  clayey,  as  the  fine 
rock  particles  were  carried  to  the  sea.  They  are  usu- 
ally composed  of  a  great  variety  of  minerals,  depending 
of  course  on  the  variety  of  rock  materials  in  their  make- 
up. The  absence  of  the  finer  clay  silt,  however,  makes 
them  more  or  less  deficient  in  potassium  compounds  and 
often  in  calcium  or  lime  compounds.  Both  of  these 
elements,  being  somewhat  soluble,  were  dissolved  out 
and  washed  along  to  the  sea.  The  porous  texture 
of  such  soils  causes  them  to  leach  manure  and  soluble 
plant  food  more  readily  than  the  heavier,  finer  textured, 
clayey  soils  of  the  hills.  The  warmth  and  natural  dry- 
ness of  the  sandy  soils  cause  the  vegetable  matter  in 
them  to  decay  and  waste  more  rapidly  than  in  the 
heavier  soils  of  the  uplands.  If  rightly  managed,  how- 
ever, and  especially  if  kept  well  stored  with  decaying 
vegetable  matter,  they  are  the  very  best  soils  for  many 
cultivated  crops,  such  as  corn,  potatoes,  root  crop, 
tobacco,  and  many  kinds  of  garden  vegetables. 

A  third  type  of  soil,  but  smaller  in  area,  is  the  lime- 
stone formation  of  the  northwest  section  of  the  county. 
Much  of  the  land  in  the  towns  of  Canaan,  Salisbury 
and  Sharon  is  underlaid  with  the  dolomitic  form  of 
limestone,  and  such  soils  are  generally  well  supplied 
with  lime  and  magnesia,  and  with  this  seems  to  be 
associated  considerable  fine  material  from  the  potash 


TOPOGRAl'lIV   AM)  Soil 

and  the  phosphate  bearing  rocks.  The  soils  of  these 
towns,  especially  of  Salisbury  and  Sharon,  once  produced 
fine  crops  of  wheat  and  are  still  noted  for  producing 
luxuriant  fields  of  oats  and  corn  and  hay.  Clover 
thrives  better  in  these  soils  than  in  the  clay  soils  of  the 
hills  or  the  sandy  soils  of  the  valleys,  and  alfalfa  has 
also  been  grown  with  considerable  success  in  these  lime- 
stone sections. 


[U] 


CHAPTER  II 


FIRST  SETTLERS  AND  EARLY  HOME  LIFE 

HEN  we  write  about  the  first  settlers  we 
naturally  think  of  those  brave  white  men 
and  women  who  sought  homes  in  "The 
Wilderness,"  as  Litchfield  County  was 
designated  in  those  early  days.  But  be- 
fore we  attempt  to  trace  the  gradual  settlement  and 
subduing  of  the  wilderness  it  may  be  well  to  give  a  little 
time  and  thought  to  those  who  possessed  the  land  even 
earlier.  While  the  Indians  of  the  East  were,  of  neces- 
sity, of  roving  habits— the  various  bands  moving  from 
place  to  place  as  game  became  scarce — yet,  according 
to  the  old  records,  they  did  have  semi-permanent 
homes.  Along  the  fertile  river  valleys  their  wigwams 
were  clustered  in  the  summer-time,  and  here  the  friable 
soil  was  doubtless  "tickled"  by  the  rude  implements  of 


FIRST  SETTLERS  AM)  I  ARl  V  HOME  LIFE 

the  industrious  squaws  and  made  to  yield  the  meager 
harvests  of  corn,  beans,  or  squash,  to  eke  out,  during 
the  long,  tedious  winters,  the  uncertain  supply  of  game. 
For  many  years  after  the  coming  of  the  white  man,  the 
Indian  lived  on  the  river  bank  and  forest  edge,  every 
now  and  then  satisfying  his  desire  for  hunting  by  de- 
scending on  some  unsuspecting  settler,  as  he  wrought  in 
his  fields,  and  carrying  him  away  captive,  or  killing  him 
on  the  spot,  if  he  attempted  to  escape.  Some  of  those 
taken  captive  were  fortunate  enough  to  escape,  but 
oftener  they  never  came  back. 

At  Kent  and  at  New  Milford,  there  were  quite  large 
Indian  settlements.  In  fact,  the  center  of  the  so-called 
Indian  kingdom  was  in  this  vicinity.  The  history  of 
the  Indians  of  Kent,  and  of  the  Moravian  mission 
among  the  Indians  of  Sharon,  is  too  well  known  to  need 
repeating  here.  According  to  Barbour's  history,  there 
were  about  two  hundred  warriors  in  the  town  of  New 
Milford  at  the  time  of  its  settlement  in  1707.  Here 
dwelt  a  powerful  sachem  whose  palace  was  standing 
when  the  white  man  came.  "On  the  inner  walls  of  this 
palace  [which  were  of  bark  with  the  smooth  side  in- 
wards] were  pictured  c\cry  known  species  of  beast, 
bird,  fish  and  insect,  from  the  largest  down  to  the  small- 
est." At  the  falls  below  New  Milford  was  a  favorite 
fishing  place  of  the  Indians,  great  numbers  of  lampreys 
being  taken  there.     As  late  as  1830,  a  few  remnants  of 


RURAL  LIFE  LN  LITCHFIELD  COUiNTY 

the  tribe  annually  claimed  their  fishing  rights,  which 
they  never  could  be  persuaded  to  sell. 

Now,  though  there  are  doubtless  a  few  descendants 
from  this  ancient  people,  our  thoughts  are  oftenest 
turned  to  them  when,  by  chance,  we  are  lucky  enough 
to  turn  up  an  arrow  point  or  find  a  rude  flint  chip.  Some 
very  fortunate  persons  have  found  banner  stones,  pieces 
of  crude  pottery  or  spear  points  of  fine  workmanship. 
One  legacy  they  have  left  which  should  be  preserved 
with  the  greatest  care— the  legacy  of  names.  There  is 
not  a  town  where  we  do  not  find  hill,  lake  or  stream 
bearing  an  Indian  name.  Unfortunately  there  is  a  ten- 
dency to  rechristen  natural  objects  and  too  often  to  give 
them  merely  sentimental  names,  or  names  of  temporary 
owners.  As  a  nation  we  lack  originality  and  imagina- 
tion in  our  names.  We  have  found  it  easier  to  say  North 
Pond  than  Keheketookosook,  to  say  Lakeville  Lake 
than  Wononscopomoc,  and  yet  how  much  more  indi- 
vidualistic are  the  Indian  names  than  those  given  by 
the  white  men !  And  if  the  Indian  name  be  retained,  it 
has  the  advantage  claimed  by  the  students  of  Greek  and 
Latin— it  belongs  to  a  dead  language  and  will  not 
change;  whereas  Dow  Hill  is  Dow  Hill  only  as  long 
as  Dows  live  there— then  it  becomes  in  turn  Huntington 
Hill,  Parker  Hill,  Hale  Hill,  and  Russell  Hill,  all 
within  the  memory  of  man.  So  let  us  forswear  the 
questionable  glory  of  giving  our  name  to  our  village  or 


FIRST  SETTLERS  AND  EARLY  HO.Mi;  LIFE 

hill  or  stream  and  keep  the  name  given  it  by  the  Indians, 
even  it  it  has  seventeen  syllables. 

It  would  be  interesting  to  know  how  the  first  white 
man  came,  whether  atoot  on  a  hunting  excursion,  or  on 
horseback,  or  by  canoe.  When  history  was  beginning, 
the  makers  were  so  occupied  with  the  problems  of  just 
living  that  it  probably  never  occurred  to  them  that  in 
the  after  years  people  would  be  glad  to  know  the  small- 
est details  of  their  daily  life.  As  soon  as  they  had 
gotten  a  foothold  and  built  up  a  few  rough  houses,  they 
called  a  minister  and  voted  a  church.  This,  as  being  of 
the  utmost  importance,  they  carefully  recorded.  Little 
side  lights  on  the  life  of  those  early  times  often  shine 
from  these  records,  as,  for  instance,  a  minister  was 
called  and  settled  and  given  as  pay  "twenty  pounds  law- 
ful money,  forty  cords  of  wood  and  the  privilege  of 
running  the  town  cider  mill" :  or  from  the  account  of 
the  settlement  of  another  whose  salary  was  to  be  paid 
in  pork,  corn,  rye,  peas,  and  other  farm  products.  So 
strong  was  the  power  of  the  church  and  so  important 
the  minister  in  the  town  or  State  that  nearly  every  town, 
in  making  allotments,  set  aside  one  or  two  or  three 
for  the  use  of  the  minister  forever.  In  some  towns  one 
plot  was  given  to  "the  first  minister,  his  heirs  and  as- 
signs forever,"  and  another  "for  the  use  of  his  succes- 
sors." 

As  has  ever  been  true,  the  march  of  civilization  was 


RURAL  LIFE  IN  LITCHFIELD  COUNTY 

continually  westward.  When  the  western  part  of  the 
State  was  settled  much  of  the  best  land  In  the  central 
valleys  and  the  coast  country  was  already  fully  occupied 
and  a  new  field  must  be  sought.  That  the  land  to  which 
they  were  going  was  known  as  the  almost  impenetrable 
"Green  Woods"  country,  that  it  comprised  rockbound 
hills,  and  that  its  dense  forests  were  alive  with  wild 
beasts  and  untamed  savages,  were  but  trifling  obstacles 
to  their  progress.  The  original  settlers  of  the  county 
were  several  generations  removed  from  the  first  emi- 
grants from  England.  Their  fathers  had  known  the 
hardships  of  wresting  a  livelihood  from  the  unbroken 
forests,  ever  harassed  by  the  cruel  and  treacherous  sav- 
ages; and  though  the  sons  retained  the  sturdy  qualities 
which  go  to  the  making  of  a  real  pioneer,  yet  some  of 
the  sterner  and  harsher  peculiarities  of  the  race  had 
become  softened  or  modified  by  the  influence  of  time. 
A  more  tolerant  and  liberal  spirit  was  manifested  in 
religion,  and  later  in  politics,  by  the  people  of  this 
county  than  in  some  other  settlements  In  the  State. 

The  usual  method  of  organizing  a  town  was  the  sell- 
ing of  a  parcel  of  land  at  auction  to  a  number  of  men, 
called  patentees,  who  might  take  up  the  land  them- 
selves or  sell  It  to  others.  Cornwall  was  sold  by  the 
colony  at  Fairfield  In  1738.  It  was  laid  out  In  "fifty 
three  allotments  and  sold  for  fifty  pounds  per  right." 
Canaan  was  sold  at  auction  in  New  London.     Goshen 

[in 


FIRST  SEITTLKRS  AND  I, AKI  A    HO.Ml-:  LIFK 

was  sold  in  New  Haven,  Norfolk  at  Middletown,  Salis- 
bury at  Hartford,  Kent  at  W'iruiharn.  Ihcrc  scctn  to 
be  various  conjectures  as  to  the  reason  for  these  differ- 
ent places  of  sale.  It  is  probable  that  the  government 
allotted  portions  of  the  unsettled  territory  to  the  towns 
already  established,  that  the  people  might  have  oppor- 
tunity to  seek  new  homes,  if  they  so  desired,  without  the 
trouble  and  expense  of  a  trip  to  the  seat  of  the  govern- 
ment. 

The  earliest  settlement  in  Litchfield  County  was 
doubtless  in  the  town  of  Woodbury.  There  is  a  tradi- 
tion of  the  coming  of  these  pioneers,  that  they  were 
ordered  by  Governor  Winthrop  to  follow  the  Pom- 
peraug  River  up  eight  miles  from  its  junction  with  the 
Housatonic.  But  the  Pomperaug  looked  so  small  that 
they  thought  they  must  be  mistaken  ami  kept  on  until 
they  came  to  the  Shepaug.  Phis  they  followed  up  eight 
miles  to  what  is  now  known  as  Roxbury  X'alley.  As  this 
did  not  quite  agree  with  the  description  of  the  land  they 
were  seeking,  they  crossed  over  the  wilderness  and  dis- 
covered from  Good  Hill  the  rich  valley  which  was  the 
object  of  their  search.  On  this  hill  they  kindled  the 
first  recorded  home  camp-fire,  and  then  in  the  name  of 
God  set  up  their  altars.  As  an  expression  of  gratitude 
for  their  safe  arrival  on  the  borders  of  such  a  rich  val- 
ley—their "promised  land"-  a  devout  deacon  of  the 
party  "fell  on  his  knees,  leading  to  prayer  the  little  band 


RURAL  LIFE  IN  LITCHFIELD  COUNTY 

of  hardy  adventurers,  invoking  the  blessing  of  Heaven 
upon  their  enterprise,  and  praying  that  their  posterity 
might  be  an  upright  and  godly  people  to  the  land." 

A  very  different  view  of  what  constituted  blessing 
and  honor  is  said  to  have  been  voiced  by  another  mem- 
ber of  the  party  when  he  put  up  a  petition  praying  "that 
his  posterity  might  always  be  blessed  with  plenty  of  rum 
and  military  glory." 

On  further  investigation  of  the  region  the  following 
day,  they  found  much  of  the  valley  land  free  from  un- 
derbrush as  a  result  of  the  Indian  custom  of  annual 
burning.  A  suitable  location  for  the  "home  lots"  being 
agreed  upon,  this  tract  was  divided  into  parcels,  the 
outlying  areas  being  held  for  later  division.  "No  one 
could  have  more  than  twenty-five  acres  for  his  home  lot, 
and  the  poorest  among  them  was  entitled  to  ten ;  so  that 
a  few  rich  could  not  control  the  township."  This  was 
the  usual  plan  for  these  earlier  settlements,  and  a  very 
wise  one  it  was.  It  provided  for  compact  villages  where 
defense  against  the  Indians  was  effective.  It  laid  the 
foundations  for  developing  a  sturdy  race  of  yeomen, 
who,  being  land  owners,  would  each  feel  an  interest  in 
the  welfare  of  the  new  country,  and  it  almost  unwit- 
tingly provided  the  villages  with  the  little  open  parks 
which  are  now  so  attractive  in  many  of  the  country 
towns.  The  houses  of  the  home  lots  were  usually  built 
around  a  hollow  square  enclosing  the  common.    When 

120-2 


FIRST  SETTLERS  AND  EARLY  HOME  LIFE 

this  was  first  set  aside  it  was  the  common  hnmc  pas- 
ture, so  to  speak,  and  upon  it  ranged  all  the  livestock 
of  the  community.  At  evening  the  stock  was  driven 
into  this  common  and  tethered  or  fenced  there  for 
safety  trom  Indians  or  wild  beasts.  This  custom  of 
letting  the  livestock  run  at  common  gave  rise  to  fre- 
quent disputes  concerning  the  ownership  of  such  ordi- 
nary stock  as  sheep,  pigs  and  cattle,  until  the  town  fa- 
thers decreed  that  each  owner  should  have  a  registered 
ear  mark.  These  were  duly  recorded,  and  in  many  a 
quaint  volume  of  town  records  bound  in  pigskin  may 
one  read  as  follows: 

"John  Bird's  ear  mark  for  his  creatures  is  a  cross  on 
the  off  ear  taken  out." 

"Hezikier  Culver's  ear  mark  for  his  creatures  is  a 
half  penny  in  the  underside  of  the  near  ear." 

"Saml  Smedley's  ear  mark  for  his  creatures  is  a  hole 
in  each  ear." 

"Samual  Root,  his  ear  mark  for  his  creatures  is  a 
cross  in  the  off  ear  and  a  half  penny  in  the  underside  of 
the  same." 

As  the  marks  on  record  increased  the  style  of  the 
marking  became  more  complicated,  as  indicated  by  the 
following : 

"Nathan  Mitchel,  his  ear  mark  for  his  creatures  is  a 
cross  cut  on  the  off  car  ami  a  slit  in  the  cross  of  the  near 
ear  and  a  slit  in  the  underside  of  the  near  ear." 


RURAL  LIFE  IN  LITCHFIELD  COUNTY 

The  taking  of  stray  animals,  and  their  impounding 
and  sale  when  not  claimed  by  the  owner,  was  also  com- 
mon, as  shown  by  the  following,  copied  from  the  Litch- 
field town  records : 

"Two  red  yearlen  heffers  marked  with  a  cross  In  the 
off  ear  and  one  black  yearlen  heffer  with  some  white 
upon  the  rump,  white  under  bolly  and  sum  white  upon 
the  inside  of  the  hind  leggs  —  also  marked  with  a  cross 
in  the  off  ear — which  heffers  are  in  the  custody  of 
Thomas  Lee  and  have  been  prized  by  his  desire  on  the 
27th  day  of  November  last  by  us,  by  the  sum  of  three 
pounds  and  fifteen  shillings,  by  us  John  Boldwin, 
Joseph  Bixy.  The  above  named  heffers  are  put  upon 
record  this  fifth  day  of  December  anno  domini  1723." 

Also  the  following,  which  is  a  record  of  sale : 

"Taken  damage  feasant,  and  impounded  by  Samuel 
Plum  in  Litchfield  and  sold  as  the  law  demits  by  Ozias 
Lewis,  the  following  sheep,  marks  as  follows  :'^^^^^X[[^ 
sold  for  i£  lis;  <CIX3^  ^^^^  ^^^  ^^  I3S-" 

Although  King  Philip's  war,  two  years  later, 
wrought  havoc  to  the  little  band  of  a  dozen  or  more 
families  that  had  ventured  to  settle  in  new  homes  In 
the  wilderness,  and  drove  them  back  to  the  parent  town, 
yet  the  records  show  that  within  a  few  years  a  road  was 
laid  out  along  the  old  Indian  trail  from  what  Is  now 
Southbury  to  the  present  site  of  Woodbury,  and  new 
settlements  were  rapidly  made  along  this  highway. 


FIRST  SETTLERS  AND  EARLY  IIOMI-   LIFE 

New  Milford,  in  the  rich  valley  of  the  Pootatuch 
(later  known  as  the  Housatonic),  was  the  second  settle- 
ment, beinp  occupied  first  in  1707,  The  fact  that  the 
settlers  came  mostly  trom  Miltord  y;ave  to  the  settle- 
ment the  name  New  Milford. 

As  Litchfield  County  is  only  about  sixty  miles  from 
the  Hudson,  it  is  not  surprising  that  settlers  of  Dutch 
descent  early  came  to  its  western  border,  purchasing 
lands  from  the  Indians  and  making  settlements.  In 
fact,  the  western  border  of  the  county  was  long  in  dis- 
pute between  the  Dutch  and  the  r>nglish.  Tradition 
has  it  that  the  redoubtable  I'^than  .Allen  settled  it  for- 
ever—in his  mind,  anyway  — by  planting  a  cannon  on 
Town  Hill  in  Salisbury  and  declaring  that  it  should  be 
Connecticut  territory  as  far  as  this  cannon  should  carry 
a  ball.  These  Dutch  settlers  took  up  holdings  at 
Weatogue  in  Salisbury  as  early  as  1720,  although  the 
sale  of  the  town  did  not  take  place  till  1737.  Ihe  pres- 
ence of  prominent  families  of  both  Dutch  and  English 
extraction,  in  the  early  history  of  the  town,  is  shown  on 
the  land  records  by  such  names  as  Dutcher,  Knicker- 
bacher  and  Van  Duzen  on  the  one  hand,  and  Russell, 
Lamb,  Porter  and  Church  on  the  other.  The  influence 
of  the  early  Dutch  settlers  is  still  seen  in  the  Dutch  style 
of  architecture.  There  are  several  quaint,  low  houses 
which  are  in  decided  contrast  to  the  more  dignified 
square-built    houses    of    colonial     architecture.       The 

1:23:1 


RURAL  LIFE  IN  LITCHFIELD  COUNTY 

houses  of  the  Dutch  type  are  built  usually  under  the  lee 
of  a  protecting  hill  which  afforded  opportunity  for  the 
basement  rooms  much  affected  by  the  Dutch. 

The  close  of  the  first  century  in  the  history  of  the 
county  was  celebrated  in  185 1  by  a  centennial  at  the 
county  seat.  Among  the  many  notable  addresses  was 
the  classic  discourse,  "The  Age  of  Homespun,"  by  the 
great  divine  Horace  Bushnell,  who,  although  his  fame 
had  taken  him  to  other  realms,  was  himself  a  son  of 
the  county.  So  clearly  does  this  discourse  set  forth  the 
spirit  of  the  age,  as  represented  in  the  first  century  of 
our  history,  that  I  venture  to  quote  briefly:  "Given  the 
fact  that  a  people  spin  their  own  dress,  and  you  have  in 
that  fact  a  whole  volume  of  characteristics.  The  dis- 
tinction will  show  them  to  be  a  people  not  in  trade, 
whose  life  centers  in  the  family,  home  bred  in  their 
manners,  primitive  and  simple  in  their  character,  in- 
flexible in  their  piety.  If  the  clothing  is  to  be  manu- 
factured in  the  house,  then  flax  will  be  grown  in  the 
plowed  land,  sheep  will  be  raised  in  the  pasture,  and  the 
measure  of  the  flax  ground  and  the  number  of  the  flock 
will  correspond  with  the  measure  of  the  home  market, 
the  number  of  sons  and  daughters  to  be  clothed,  so  that 
the  agriculture  out  of  doors  will  map  the  family  in- 
doors." 

In  other  words,  this  was  an  age  when  agriculture  was 
a  self-supporting  industry.     The  wants  of  the  family 

1:24] 


FIRST  SETTLERS  AND  EARI  V  HOME  LIFE 

were  fully  supplied  from  the  fields,  the  Hocks,  the  herds 
and  the  forest.  The  house  was  a  factory  on  the  farm, 
and  the  farmer  the  producer  of  the  raw  materials  used 
in  the  factory.  1  he  conditions,  throughout  the  entire 
county,  were  much  the  same  during  the  earlier  part  of 
the  first  century  of  our  history,  and  were  marked  by  an 
almost  entire  absence  of  trade.  Irue,  the  farmers  in 
the  southern  edge  of  the  county  could  reach  the  coast 
and  found  a  limited  market  with  the  West  Indies,  and 
the  extreme  western  towns  found  a  small  outlet  for 
farm  products  by  way  of  the  Hudson  River,  but  the 
almost  entire  absence  of  roads  and  the  scarcity  of 
vehicles  for  transportation  made  travel  almost  impos- 
sible, except  on  horseback.  In  the  earlier  days  this 
mode  of  travel  was  practised  alike  by  the  women  and 
the  men. 

The  first  dwellings  were  doubtless  made  from  hewn 
timbers  taken  directly  from  the  forests,  but  as  power 
saw-mills  were  early  constructed  along  the  many 
streams,  rough  boards  were  soon  sawed  for  the  outside 
covering,  flooring  and  interior  finish,  and  the  original 
log  houses  were  soon  replaced  by  more  pretentious 
dwellings.  All  of  the  finish  had  to  be  done  by  hand- 
working,  and  so  skilled  were  many  of  the  workmen  that 
the  interior  arrangements  are  without  parallel  to-day 
for  utility,  combined  with  good  taste.  The  heavy  hewn 
timbers,  often  showing  in  the  corners  and  ceilings  of  the 

[25] 


RURAL  LIFE  IN  LITCHFIELD  COUNTY 

rooms,  were  features  of  beauty  as  well  as  strength. 
The  mellowed  color  of  the  wood  gave  a  tone  to  the 
whole  room,  and  when  the  beams  were  ornamented 
with  a  simple  carved  design,  as  was  sometimes  done  in 
the  "best  room,"  the  effect  was,  as  an  old,  old  lady  once 
said,  "right  neat  and  tasty."  Very  often  the  walls  of 
the  rooms  in  these  old  houses  are  covered  with  wooden 
panels,  especially  about  the  chimney,  where  the  panels 
concealed  the  various  handy  cupboards  and  snug  re- 
cesses. 

The  long  lean-to  roof,  sometimes  sloping  nearly  to 
the  ground,  was  a  shrewd  attempt  of  the  early  settlers 
to  avoid  the  tax  laid  by  Queen  Anne  on  all  two-story 
houses.  These  salt-box  houses,  as  they  are  called,  are 
quite  characteristic  of  rural  New  England.  They  allow 
for  great  surface  area  on  the  first  floor  and  provide  full 
height  chambers  on  one  side  of  the  upper  story.  The 
low  roof  with  its  gentle  rise  had  its  possible  disadvan- 
tages, as  voiced  in  the  old  couplet, 

"O  for  a  thousand  bricks 

To  build  my  chimney  higher; 
To  keep  the  pesky  neighbors'  gals 
From  putting  out  my  fire." 

One  of  the  earliest  and  most  important  improve- 
ments bearing  on  building  construction  is  credited  to 


FIRST  SETTLERS  AND  EARI  V  HoMi:  LIFE 

the  astuteness  of  a  Litchfield  County  man  during  Revo- 
lutionary days.  Up  to  this  time  nails  were  all  ham- 
mered out  of  bar  iron,  a  slow  and  expensive  process. 
There  was  a  slitting  mill  in  New  Jersey  in  which  nail 
rods  were  made,  but  the  process  was  kept  secret. 
Samuel  Forbes  of  Canaan  wished  to  obtain  a  know- 
ledge of  it,  and  so  employed  an  ingenious  mechanic  and 
millwright,  who,  under  disguise,  obtained  admission  to 
the  mill  and  critically  and  without  suspicion  marked  the 
machinery  and  its  operations  so  as  to  be  able  to  make  a 
model  of  the  machine  and  construct  a  mill  for  Forbes. 

The  shingles  used  in  the  early  days  were  all  riven 
by  hand.  "A  block  was  sawn  from  whatever  wood  was 
handy,  ash  or  chestnut  or  pine,  but  a  good  straight 
grain.  Then  the  piece  was  set  on  end  and  it  was  care- 
fully split  into  thin  pieces  by  frow  and  wooden  mallet. 
These  were  then  shaved  to  the  proper  thinness  and 
would  last,  even  the  pine  shingle,  for  fifty  years.  And 
that  was  because  they  didn't  lay  'em  so  tight.  What 
was  a  frow?  Oh,  it  was  like  a  broad,  thin-bladcd  axe, 
and  was  always  struck  by  a  mallet  to  drive  it  in." 

But  it  was  the  great  stone  chimney  with  its  flanking 
fireplaces  that  was  the  heart  of  the  home.  Built  of 
rough  field  stone,  rudely  cut  into  blocks,  the  chimney 
often  took  up  as  much  space  on  the  first  floor  as  a  mod- 
ern city  room.  This  great  size  was  necessary  to  pro- 
vide flues  for  the  many  fireplaces  which  were  built  in  it, 


RURAL  LIFE  L\  LITCHFIELD  COUNTY 

up  and  down  on  all  sides;  often  there  were  six,  some- 
times twenty.  In  some  of  these  old  chimneys,  too,  there 
was  built  a  little  room  where,  on  projecting  pegs,  could 
be  hung  and  smoked  the  yearly  supply  of  hams  and 
bacon.  Often  a  rude  ladder  was  constructed  of 
projecting  stones  on  the  outside  of  the  chimney,  by 
means  of  which  one  could  climb  from  cellar  to  roof. 
Around  the  hearth,  in  the  great  living  room,  the  family 
gathered  in  the  long  winter  evenings,  each  one  busy 
with  some  task.  The  smoke  from  the  great  logs  of 
beech,  birch,  oak  and  hickory,  against  the  evening  sky, 
bespoke  a  condition  of  interior  comfort  and  signaled  a 
welcome  to  many  a  stranger.  To  give  a  little  idea  of  the 
size  of  those  great  fireplaces,  a  lady  told  me  not  long 
ago  that  she  well  remembered  standing  in  the  corner  of 
the  fireplace  with  a  good  fire  blazing  on  the  hearth  and 
looking  up  with  awe  and  wonder  at  the  stars  twinkling 
above  the  chimney  top. 

In  these  days  of  ready-made  goods  one  can  scarcely 
imagine  the  variety  of  occupations  pursued  in  these  old 
living  rooms.  Here  the  wool  was  carded  and  spun, 
here  stockings  were  knit  and  the  flax  was  spun,  and  pos- 
sibly the  earlier  preparation  was  given  it  here.  By  the 
light  of  the  blazing  fire  the  thrifty  farmer  carved  out 
the  simple  tools  used  in  his  primitive  agriculture.  Here 
he  fashioned  flails,  hand  cards,  wooden  rakes  or  harrow 
teeth,  made  spiles  for  tapping  the  maple  trees,  or  fash- 


FIRST  SETTLERS  AND  i:.\\<\\    lloMi:  MI  E 

ioned  snow-shoes  to  be  used  in  crossing  the  drifted 
snows  they  had  in  those  good  old-fashioned  winters. 

During  the  Revolution  much  of  the  cherished  pewter 
was  melted  for  bullets.  The  story  goes  that  in  the  town 
of  Sharon  there  was  a  bullet  "bee"  and  several  bushels 
of  bullets  were  moulded  in  an  evening.  I  hen,  the 
household  supply  of  pewter  dishes  being  seriously  de- 
pleted, there  was  another  "bee"  at  which  the  young 
men  carved  wooden  plates  and  trenchers  to  take  the 
place  of  those  patriotically  sacrificed  to  the  cause  of 
freedom. 

Aside  from  the  fashioning  of  the  lighter  implements 
by  the  fireplace  and  the  cutting  and  hauling  ot  the  great 
piles  of  wood  needed  for  the  year's  supply,  the  farmer 
and  his  sons  often  worked  during  the  winter  at  some 
minor  trades  in  small  shops  built  for  the  purpose. 
There  they  broke  and  hetcheled  the  flax,  made  barrels, 
butter  firkins,  wash  tubs,  and  buckets  for  water,  for 
milk  or  for  sap.  They  put  flag  or  rush  bottoms  in 
chairs  and  the  more  skilful  fashioned  some  of  the  plain, 
strong  pieces  of  furniture  out  of  the  great  black  cherry 
trees  that  had  been  felled  and  seasoned  for  the  purpose. 

In  the  towns  where  there  were  limestone  outcrop- 
pings,  the  farmers  used  to  make  a  rough  kiln,  piling  it 
full  of  the  pieces  of  limestone  and  then  burning  it. 
After  burning  it  would  be  left  in  a  heap  until  a  conve- 
nient time,  when  it  would  be  hauled  by  ox  teams  to 


RURAL  LIFE  IN  LITCHFIELD  COUNTY 

Hartford  or  Albany,  to  be  exchanged  for  household 
necessities.  It  took,  three  days  to  make  the  trip  from 
Canaan  to  Hartford  and  return— two  trips  a  week. 

On  some  of  the  farms  slav^es  were  kept  to  do  the 
heavier  work  for  the  house  and  farm.  One  man 
brought  with  him  from  his  former  home  in  the  South 
over  a  hundred  slaves,  but  soon  sold  most  of  them  for 
lack  of  slave  quarters. 

The  days  of  the  house-mother  in  those  early  times 
were  filled  with  duties,  many  and  various.  She  had  to 
look  well  to  the  ways  of  her  household,  else  it  suffered 
from  lack  of  food  and  clothes.  She  took  the  raw  ma- 
terial produced  by  the  goodman  of  the  house  and  the 
stalwart  sons,  and  from  the  flax  made  clothes  and  from 
the  corn  made  food.  Very  little  that  was  used  in  the 
house  came  from  outside.  The  sugar  was  made  from  the 
hard  maples,  the  meats  were  home-grown  and  home- 
cured,  soap  was  made  twice  a  year;  candles  to  supple- 
ment the  light  from  the  blazing  fireplace  were  dipped 
for  daily  use,  or  run  for  company  candles.  I  remember 
the  tall  candlesticks  with  a  curved  hook  projecting 
from  the  top  rim.  This  was  to  catch  into  a  staple  driven 
into  the  edge  of  the  mantel  over  the  fireplace  to  bring 
the  light  nearer  to  one  who  would  thumb  the  almanac 
or  peruse  a  volume  of  sermons.  All  the  clothing  of  the 
family,  as  well  as  household  linen,  was  usually  made  in 
the   home.     A  dress  of   cotton  print   was   a   greater 

:3o] 


FIRST  SETTLERS  AM)  I'ARI  V  Ho.MI     1  II  H 

treasure  a  hundred  years  ago  than  a  silk  one  is  to-day. 
A  busy,  busy  life  they  led,  these  sturdy  forefathers  and 
foremothers  of  ours;  toil  was  tedious,  but  they  were 
content,  and  life  was  sweet. 


[31] 


CHAPTER  III 


FIELD  AND  GARDEN  CROPS  IN  THE  EARLY  DAYS 


T  has  been  noted  that  the  earliest  settle- 
ments were  along  river  valleys.  This  was 
most  natural  for  two  reasons:  the  rivers 
were  the  usual  means  of  penetrating  the 
wilderness,  and  the  valleys  through  which 
they  flowed  were  comparatively  free  from  forests  and 
were  composed  of  a  kind  of  soil  more  readily  cultivated 
than  the  rocky  areas  on  the  hillsides. 

After  a  field  was  stripped  of  trees  and  freed  from 
stones,  it  was  plowed  and  roughly  harrowed.  The  only 
plow  in  use  up  to  the  early  years  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury was  the  unwieldy,  heav^y-beamed,  wooden  plow.  It 
was  not  of  a  type  suited  to  lifting  boulders  in  its  course 
through  the  soil.  Perhaps  this  may  account  for  the 
thoroughness  with  which  fields  on  our  hills  were  cleared 

L3^1 


CROPS  IN  im:  i:ari.v  days 

of  loose  stones  and  boulders.  There  were  many  tradi- 
tions of  "bees"  where  men  and  teams  turned  in  to  help 
a  neighbor  clear  a  field  of  rocks,  which  were  afterwards 
utilized  in  making  great  walls  about  the  fields.  After 
the  rude  plow,  the  heavy,  wooden,  peg-toothed  harrow 
was  used  for  fitting  the  seed  bed,  and  after  seeding,  the 
brush  was  dragged  over  to  scratch  in  the  seed.  These 
were  the  only  implements  of  tillage,  excepting,  of 
course,  the  strictly  hand  tools,  in  use  until  after  the 
Revolution. 

Corn  was  planted  by  hand,  following  the  old  Indian 
custom.  A  child  often  carried  a  sack  of  corn,  walking 
up  and  down  the  plowed  field  and  dropping  in  the  tra- 
ditional five  kernels, 

"One  for  the  bug, 
One  for  the  crow. 
One  to  rot 

And  two  to  grow." 

Following  the  dropper  came  a  stalwart  man  armed 
with  the  heavy,  clumsy  hoe,  who  drew  the  earth  o\er 
the  kernels  and  gave  it  three  pats  to  fix  the  earth 
about  them. 

The  sown  crops  needed  little  care  till  harvest,  but 
progressive  farmers,  or  those  having  many  boys  to  keep 
employed,  always  hoed  the  corn.     A  man  who  in  his 


RURAL  LIFE  IN  LITCHFIELD  COUNTY 

eighty-third  year  "raised  171  bushels,  on  the  ear,  of 
corn  to  the  acre"  told  me  that  the  plowing  was  poorly 
done  in  those  days,  but  good  crops  were  harvested  be- 
cause the  land  was  new  and  rich.  He  also  said  that  in 
his  grandfather's  day,  after  a  piece  was  plowed  and 
sown,  "the  farmer  would  cut  down  a  good  stout  thorn 
bush  and  kinder  hetchel  in  the  seed."  Flax,  rye  and 
wheat  were  "hetcheled"  in,  or  scratched  in  with  a 
brush.  This  brush  generally  consisted  of  birch  trees  set 
in  a  head.    A  long  chain  connected  it  with  the  ox  yoke. 

For  many  years  the  grain  harvest  was  entirely  de- 
pendent on  the  sickle — a  slow,  tedious  process  indeed, 
and  not  so  very  much  lightened  by  the  introduction  of 
the  grain  cradle.  It  took  a  strong  man  with  an  un- 
breakable back  and  an  alert  eye  to  be  a  good  cradler. 
Great  are  the  stories  told  even  to  this  day  of  the  mighty 
feats  of  cradling  performed  by  our  fathers  or  grand- 
fathers. The  usual  day's  work  was  two  or  three  acres, 
but  there  is  a  record  of  thirty  acres  in  six  days.  It  took 
a  skilful  swing  of  the  cradle  to  cut  the  grain  close  to  the 
ground  and  yet  not  close  enough  to  hit  the  small  stones 
and  dull  the  scythe. 

The  corn  crop,  aside  from  the  hoeing,  was  more 
easily  raised  than  the  small  grains.  The  ears  could  be 
picked  from  the  standing  stalks,  or  more  often  the  corn 
was  cut,  the  stalks  dried  in  the  field  and  then  either  the 
unhusked  ears  picked  off  and  carried  to  the  barn,  or  else 

[343 


CROPS  IX  THK  EARLY  DAYS 

the  whole  shocks  of  corn  were  thus  stored.  I  he  husk- 
ing of  the  corn  gave  opportunity  for  great  frohcs,  and 
it  is  one  of  the  few  diversions  of  our  ancestors  which 
possesses  romance  enough  to  be  popular  among  young 
people  ot  the  present  time.  Probably  its  popularity  is 
due  to  the  perpetual  presence  of  red  ears. 

Such  good  things  as  were  made  of  the  corn!  — mush 
or  hasty  pudding,  well  deserving  the  eloquent  tribute 
paid  to  it  by  Joel  Barlow  in  his  "Ode  to  Hasty  l*ud- 
ding,"  as  it  came  hot  and  fragrant  from  its  long,  slow 
cooking  over  the  coals;  hoe  cake  or  ash  cake,  crisp  and 
so  brown  and  tasty  around  the  edges.  A  delicious 
johnny-cake  was  made  by  mixing  the  meal  with  hot 
water,  spreading  it  on  a  smooth  oak  board,  covering 
the  dough  with  thick  cream  and  slightly  tipping  it  up  in 
front  of  the  fire  to  cook,  turning  it  as  needed.  The  truly 
old-fashioned  bean  porridge  was  thickened  with  corn 
meal. 

A  lady  who  was  born  in  1818  once  told  me  her  ex- 
planation of  the  common  saying,  "He'll  never  set  the 
Thames  [or  river]  afire."  7  he  Indian  meal  used  to  be 
sifted  into  a  long  wooden  bread  tray,  and  from  one  end 
to  the  other  ran  a  flat  stick  to  support  the  coarse  cloth- 
bottomed  sieve  or  "tcmpse."  .\  swift  worker  moving 
this  quickly  back  and  forth  might  possibly  "set  the 
tempse  afire,"  but  a  slow  person  never  would. 

In  most  communities,  in  the  early  days,  wheat  was 

an 


RURAL  LIFE  IN  LITCHFIELD  COUNTY 

seldom  raised;  and  when  it  was,  the  flour,  though  not 
much  like  the  product  of  the  modern  flour  mills,  was 
saved  for  extra  occasions.  The  common  bread  was 
"rye  and  injun,"  made  of  rye  meal  and  corn  meal 
mixed. 

The  farm  garden  was  probably  meagerly  supplied  in 
those  early  days.  Aside  from  the  field  crops  of  rye, 
buckwheat,  wheat  and  corn,  they  had  beans,  peas, 
turnips,  parsnips,  and  carrots.  Potatoes  were  little 
used  until  after  the  Revolution.  The  native  pumpkins 
and  squashes  were  much  appreciated  by  the  early  set- 
tlers and  were  utilized  in  astonishing  ways,  and  what 
they  couldn't  eat  fresh  the  good  housewife  dried  for 
the  winter's  supply.  Helen  Evertson  Smith,  in  her  at- 
tractive book  "Colonial  Days  and  Ways,"  transcribes 
a  letter  describing  Thanksgiving  Day  in  1779.  The 
writer  remarks  that  they  have  no  beef  and  have  not  had 
for  three  years  because  it  has  all  gone  to  the  soldiers  in 
the  army.  They  had  venison  from  a  good  red  deer, 
huge  chines  of  roast  pork,  a  big  roast  turkey,  a  goose 
and  two  big  pigeon  pasties.  "Then  there  was  an 
abundance  of  good  vegetables  of  all  the  old  sorts  and 
one  which  I  do  not  believe  you  have  seen  yet.  Uncle 
Simeon  had  imported  the  seed  from  England  just  be- 
fore the  war  began  and  only  this  year  was  there  enough 
for  table  use.  It  is  called  Sellery  and  you  eat  it  without 
cooking.   It  is  very  good  served  with  meats.  ...  It  has 

1:36: 


CROPS  I\  THF.  KAkI  ^    DAYS 

to  be  taken  up  roots  and  all  and  buried  in  earth  in  the 
cellar  through  the  winter  and  only  pulled  up  when  you 
want  some  of  it  to  use." 

A  crop  of  the  greatest  irn[i()rtance.  though  one  sel- 
dom raised  now,  was  Hax.  Its  culture  was  considered 
so  important  that  the  government  directed  that  it  be 
raised  by  each  farmer,  being  sown  In  May  and  ready  to 
pull  by  the  last  of  July.  A  more  beautiful  sight  than 
a  field  of  blossoming  Hax,  as  blue  as  the  heavens,  can 
hardly  be  imagined.  Although  the  flax  was  so  quickly 
grown,  yet  its  preparation  for  household  use  was  slow 
and  tedious.  It  was  pulled  by  the  roots  and  then  ripped  ; 
that  is,  the  seed  pods  were  combed  off  by  a  ripple  comb. 
These  pods  and  seeds  were  caught  on  a  sheet  to 
furnish  seed  for  another  season.  Rippling  was  done  in 
the  field  and  then  the  stalks  were  tied  by  the  blossom 
ends  and  dried.  When  dry  they  were  put  in  running 
water  and  left  till  the  leaves  rotted  off,  a  process  that 
took  only  a  few  days.  This  was  called  retting  the  flax. 
After  retting  it  was  dried  and  tied  in  bundles  and  then 
broken  on  the  heavy  flax  brake  to  separate  the  fibers. 
This  was  very  heavy  work,  properly  belonging  to  the 
men  of  the  farm.  .After  breaking,  it  was  "scutched  or 
swingled"  to  take  out  the  bark.  The  swingling  had  to 
be  done  on  a  dry  day,  and  from  the  coarse  refuse  which 
was  taken  out,  sacking  could  be  made.  Ihen  the  flax 
was  ready  to  be  hctcheled.     This  process  consisted  in 


RURAL  LIFE  L\  LITCHFIELD  COUxNTY 

threshing  small  bunches  of  the  straw  across  the  teeth  of 
a  hetchel,  thereby  straightening  the  fibers  and  combing 
out  the  small  pieces.  As  many  as  six  hetchels  were 
sometimes  used  if  especially  fine  linen  was  desired,  and 
it  was  astonishing  that  so  small  a  quantity  was  left  for 
further  manipulation.  But  it  was  also  surprising  to  see 
how  much  thread  a  small  handful  of  good  fiber  would 
make.  Thus  after  twenty  handlings  of  the  flax  it  was 
only  ready  to  spin.  When  spun  and  reeled  it  was  ready 
to  be  bleached  in  the  thread,  and  various  bleachings 
marked  the  finished  product. 

As  more  cattle  came  to  be  kept,  it  became  necessary 
to  house  winter  food  for  them.  The  great  meadows 
produced  nativ^e  grasses,  but  the  early  settlers  regarded 
these  with  scant  favor  and  imported  seed  from  England 
to  improve  the  grass  lands.  This  custom  has  been  kept 
up,  and  now,  nearly  three  hundred  years  since  the  first 
settlement  in  New  England,  there  is,  with  the  exception 
of  Phleiim  pratense,  the  herd's  grass  or  timothy,  not  a 
native  grass  deemed  worthy  of  cultivation.  And  the 
botanists  are  trying  to  prove  that  the  quaint  little  tradi- 
tion of  Timothy  Herd  and  his  native  grass  must  go  Into 
tradition's  scrap  heap  along  with  the  stories  of  the 
apple  and  cherry  tree. 

However,  there  were  big  hay  fields,  and  up  to  about 
1 850  these  were  all  cut  by  hand.  One  aged  farmer  thus 
tells  his  first  experience:  "Say,  I've  got  the  first  half 

1:38] 


CROPS  IN  THE  EARLY   DAYS 

dollar  I  ever  earned.  I  worked  tor  a  man  in  haying 
time  a  week  tor  my  board  and  earned  that  half  dollar; 
we  worked,  I  tell  ye.  We'd  get  up'n  the  morning,  say  at 
half  past  two,  or  soon's  wc  c'u'd  see,  'n'  mow  till  five  (I 
spread).  I  hen  I'd  get  up  the  cows  and  the  women  n' 
I'd  milk  the  cows,  'n'  we'd  have  breakfast.  'N'  then 
we'd  go  at  it  ag'in,  mowin'  as  hard's  ever  we  c'u'd  till 
ten.  Ihen  all  hands,  women  'n'  all,  would  turn  in  'n' 
rake  and  get  in.  I  'member  that  five  men  got  in  thirteen 
loads  one  day.  It'd  bother  a  mowing  machine  some  to 
do  that." 

One  means  of  enlarging  the  hay  crop  that  was  in  use 
on  manv  farms  sixty  to  eighty  years  ago  was  by  irriga- 
tion. W  henever  a  brook  could  be  turned  from  its 
course  and  carried  along  some  slope  and  then  be  turned 
over  the  grass  fields,  it  was  commonly  done  and  the  hay 
crop  thus  greatly  improved.  On  many  farms  through- 
out the  county  may  be  found  old  irrigation  ditches  that 
have  long  been  abandoned.  In  the  first  report  of  the 
State  Board  of  Agriculture  in  1866  will  be  found  scries 
of  letters  on  what  was  then  being  done  with  irrigation 
in  agriculture,  and  some  of  the  best  results  are  reported 
from  Litchfield  County. 

•Although  the  potato  was  a  plant  of  American  origin, 
it  was  not  known  to  the  natives  of  the  North  at  the  time 
this  country  was  settled.  It  was  introduced  into  Eng- 
land and  on  the  European  continent  from  our  southern 


■yni^i  otili  jzrrrra^  h^ii    k-^j  i  f-    nmrcsi  nrsa  mr 


•tie- "nrrriTT. 
_n:  ^215  — >^'.: '     r  "•or  tatii   nn^Di  31  !ic  x 


urn  IT  "tg-  :srrr  sorrxi^         u-niw  -^_i_- 


CROPS  IN  TIIF  EARLY  DAYS 

in  the  corn  fields  in  midsummer,  and  made  good  growth 
through  the  fall,  after  the  corn  was  cut. 

Carrots  were  another  root  crop  whose  feeding  value 
was  early  recognized.  Before  the  days  of  patent  butter 
colors,  carrots  were  commonly  fed  to  milking  cows, 
when  they  were  not  on  pasture  feed,  in  order  to  impart 
a  "June  color"  to  the  butter.  Carrots,  too,  were  com- 
monly fed  to  horses  before  the  days  of  western  grain 
feeds.  They  were  found  to  be  especially  valuable  as  a 
tonic  and  corrective. 

America  gave  to  the  world  two  of  the  most  useful 
food  plants— corn  and  the  potato  — and  in  addition  the 
worthless  and  yet  commercially  valuable  weed,  tobacco. 
This  plant  was  found  by  the  first  settlers,  being  cul- 
tivated by  the  Indians  in  Virginia,  and  they  taught 
the  white  man  the  use  of  the  soothing  narcotic.  While 
tobacco  was  grow-n  as  a  garden  crop  in  Connecticut  in 
colonial  days,  it  was  not  cultivated  for  market  until 
about  1830.  It  was  grown  in  the  Connecticut  Valley 
for  about  twenty  years  before  it  came  into  the  Housa- 
tonic  Valley.  Up  to  about  thirty  years  ago  the  Con- 
necticut broad  leaf,  introduced  from  Maryland  into  this 
State  in  the  early  thirties,  was  the  leading  variety  grown 
for  the  trade.  For  the  past  thirty  years  the  highest 
grade  of  Havana  wrapper  leaf  has  been  grown  with 
good  profit  on  the  sandy  loam  soils  of  the  Housatonic 
Valley. 

[41] 


RURAL  LIFE  IN  LITCHFIELD  COUNTY 

Many  of  the  garden  crops  that  are  now  so  readily 
preserved  for  winter  use  by  canning,  were  preserved  in 
the  early  days  by  drying.  Nearly  every  kitchen  was 
festooned  from  the  ceiling  with  strings  of  dried  apples, 
sliced  pumpkins  and  squash  and  red  peppers,  and  often 
the  shelves  were  covered  with  sweet  corn,  green  peas, 
currants  and  sometimes  with  berries  from  the  woods 
and  fields.  Before  the  days  of  railroads,  when  there 
was  little  travel  from  place  to  place,  each  family  was 
sure  to  provide  itself  with  a  goodly  store  of  everything 
that  could  add  to  the  physical  comfort  of  the  family 
during  the  long  winter  season.  The  family  constituted 
the  only  market  for  the  farm  products,  and  the  needs  of 
the  family  and  of  the  live  stock  were  a  measure  of  the 
crops  grown. 


n42] 


CHAPTER  IV 


FARMINC;  TOOLS  AND  IMPLKMF.NTS 

|S  has  been  inciJentally  noted  in  the  pre- 
ceding pages,  the  tools  of  the  early  set- 
tlers were  of  the  simplest,  crudest  con- 
struction, and  generally  home-made.  The 
farmer  and  the  members  of  his  household 
niaclc  the  rakes,  the  forks,  axe  helves,  shovels  with 
wrought  iron  edges,  flails,  baskets,  ox  yokes,  cheese 
presses,  butter  bowls  and  paddles.  Even  plow  frames 
and  drags  were  fashioned  by  the  aid  of  adze,  draw- 
shave  and  knife,  from  the  timber  of  the  forest  which 
stood  almost  at  the  farmer's  door. 

The  first  plows  were  heavy,  clumsy  affairs,  almost 
wholly  of  wood  except  that  the  mouldboard  was  rein- 
forced by  bands  of  iron ;  and  yet  some  of  the  older  men 
say  that  "Grandfather  with  one  of  these  heavy  wooden 

[43] 


RURAL  LIFE  IN  LITCHFIELD  COUNTY 

plows,  drawn  by  a  yoke  of  oxen,  could  do  handsomer 
plowing  than  is  done  with  the  best  sulky  plow  of  to- 
day." 

The  mechanics  of  the  plow  were  practically  unknown 
until  Thomas  Jefferson  made  a  study  of  the  subject  and 
constructed  a  plow  along  scientific  lines,  basing  his  work 
on  the  mechanical  principles  of  the  wedge,  by  which  the 
plow  operates.  From  this  time  (about  1800)  the  real 
improvements  in  the  plow  began.  For  years  after  these 
experiments  the  farmers  were  slow  to  appreciate  the 
benefits  which  might  result  from  them.  They  thought 
the  iron  plow  would  poison  the  soil,  and  so,  for  many 
years,  they  clung  to  the  heavy  wooden  plow  which 
varied  but  little  in  pattern  from  that  used  3000  years 
ago.  Some  of  these  old  plows  were  so  heavy  that  sev- 
eral men  were  required  to  hold  one  in  the  soil.  When 
the  plow  which  Israel  Putnam  left  in  the  furrow  to 
answer  the  call  of  Bunker  Hill  was  exhibited  in  Hart- 
ford, some  twenty  years  ago,  an  up-to-date  farmer  was 
heard  to  say,  "Well,  I  don't  wonder  he  left  it  in  the 
furrow  to  answer  the  call.  He'd  never  have  got  there 
if  he'd  waited  to  finish  plowing,  and  I  don't  know  but 
death  by  a  bullet  would  be  full  as  easy  as  wearing  your- 
self out  bunting  rocks  with  that  thing." 

After  the  land  was  prepared  by  the  plow  the  seed 
was  sown  broadcast  by  hand,  and  in  the  very  early  times 
"kinder  hetcheled  in  with  a  thorn  bush  set  in  a  stick." 

[443 


FARMING  TOOLS  AND  IMPLKMKNTS 

Then  the  seed  was  "finned  in"  by  the  use  ni  a  heavy 
stone  boat  loaded  with  stones  or  by  a  wooden  roller 
hewn  by  hand  from  a  tree  trunk,  two  feet  or  more  in 
diameter. 

1  he  common  form  ot  harrow  ot  one  hundred  years 
ago  was  the  wooden  framed,  A-shaped  harrow,  set  with 
hardwood  pegs  more  than  a  foot  in  length.  Of  course, 
on  our  rocky  hills  it  became  necessary  frequently  to  re- 
place the  teeth,  as  they  soon  became  dulled  so  that  they 
only  slightly  stirred  the  surface  soil. 

The  grain  was  for  years  cut  by  the  sickle,  a  method 
dating  back  to  Bible  times.  I- rom  the  Neiu  England 
Farmer,  issue  of  July  21,  1849,  the  following  is  taken 
regarding  "Grain  Cradles": 

"I  his  is  truly  a  labor-saving  implement,  doing  work 
in  a  neat  manner  in  good  hands,  and  with  great  expedi- 
tion, having  decided  advantages  over  the  sickle  with  its 
slow,  tedious,  back-aching  operation.  I  he  gain  in  dis- 
patching the  harvesting  of  grain  is  not  merely  doing  it 
at  less  expense,  but  often  the  advantage  is  in  perform- 
ing it  in  the  very  nick  of  time  and  thereby  saving  the 
grain  from  a  storm  or  from  standing  too  late." 

Although  the  first  reapers  had  been  patented  prior  to 
the  introduction  of  the  grain  cratlle,  for  many  years 
they  did  not  work  satisfactorily.  What  proved  to  be 
the  first  satisfactory  style  of  horse-power  reaper  was 
shown  at  the  World's  I- air  in  London  in  185  i,  and  this, 

[45] 


RURAL  LIFE  IN  LITCHFIELD  COUNTY 

like  nearly  all  of  our  improved  farm  machinery,  was  of 
American  invention.  It  is  only  within  the  past  thirty 
years  that  reapers  have  been  used  at  all  commonly  on 
the  stony  side  hill  fields  of  Litchfield  County. 

After  the  grain  was  cradled  it  was  bound  in  bundles, 
and  when  sufliciently  dry  was  laboriously  threshed  by 
hand.  A  flail  is  one  of  the  simplest  of  farming  tools, 
and  yet  its  manipulation  requires  great  skill.  Two 
smooth,  rounded  sticks  are  tied  together  by  a  thong, 
preferably  of  eel's  skin,  and  the  trick  is  to  grasp  the 
handle  and  then  rhythmically  thump  out  the  grain  with 
the  swinging  end  and  not  thump  your  own  head  or  the 
person  of  your  threshing  mate.  Yankee  ingenuity  soon 
contrived  an  easier  way  of  threshing,  and  water-power 
threshers  early  came  into  use.  These  did  away  with 
the  labor  of  threshing  by  hand,  but  the  straw  was 
chopped  up  and  spoiled.  With  the  invention  of  the 
horse-power  thresher,  improvements  were  made  so  that 
the  straw  came  out  in  shape  to  use  as  desired.  One 
successful  farmer,  now  living  in  Canaan,  has  recently 
told  me  that  seventy  years  ago  his  father  raised  forty 
acres  of  oats,  threshed  them  by  "water  thresher"  and 
carted  them  to  Winsted,  where  they  were  sold  for 
twenty-six  cents  a  bushel.  In  the  early  times  the 
threshed  grain  was  winnowed  by  pouring  from  one  re- 
ceptacle to  another  and  letting  the  wind  carry  away  the 
chaft.     Or  on  a  windy  day  the  big  barn  doors  were 

1:46] 


FARMING  TOOLS  AND  IMPLFMFA'TS 

opened  and  the  threshed  grain  was  tossed  in  the  air  by 
clean  wooden  scoop  shovels  and  the  lighter  chaff  blown 
away.  In  a  collection  of  old  implements  I  saw  not  long 
ago  were  several  broad,  shallow,  close-woven  baskets 
of  splint  work,  which  were  labeled  "Use  Unknown." 
I  may  be  mistaken,  but  I  strongly  suspect  they  were  bas- 
kets woven  for  the  special  purpose  of  winnowing  grain. 

The  cleaned  grain  was  now  ready  for  the  mill. 
Among  the  earliest  grants  in  nearly  every  township  was 
the  water  privilege  which  was  given  on  the  condition 
that  the  grantee  should  grind  all  the  grain  for  the  com- 
munity. It  is  probable  that  until  after  the  establishment 
of  grist  mills  not  much  use  was  made  of  the  small 
grains.  Indian  corn  was  the  staple  grain  in  the  earliest 
times  and  was  ground  into  meal  in  the  Indian  fashion. 

The  corn  when  husked  had  to  be  shelled,  and  many 
and  various  were  the  devices  employed  to  make  the 
flinty  kernels  rattle  off  faster.  The  common  method 
was  to  rub  one  ear  across  another  in  the  hands  and  thus 
make  them  shell  each  other;  but  seekers  after  an  easier 
way  used  to  rake  the  well  dried  ears  across  the  edge  of 
a  clean  shovel  or  the  sharp  edge  of  a  skillet.  Yankee 
ingenuity  soon  devised  a  crude  shelling  machine,  and 
those  in  use  to-day  are  fashioned  upon  the  same  prin- 
ciple. 

The  shelled  corn,  in  the  absence  of  the  power  mill, 
might  be  pounded  in  a  hollow  stump  made  for  the  pur- 

[47] 


RURAL  LIFE  IN  LITCHFIELD  COUNTY 

pose,  and  thus  cracked  or  ground,  or  be  crushed  In  a 
primitive  hand  mill.  Where  the  Indian  method  of 
cracking  in  a  stump  was  employed  It  was  often  set  out 
of  doors  under  a  tree  and  the  pestle  tied  to  a  bough  to 
give  It  a  rebound  and  save,  for  the  down  stroke,  the 
weary  arms  of  the  miller. 

Mr.  W.  E.  Pettee  of  Salisbury  Invented  the  first 
spring-toothed  harrow,  one  of  the  first  steps  in  making 
farm  work  easy.  By  a  peculiar  process  of  tempering 
the  steel  he  was  able  to  construct  a  harrow  with  curved 
teeth  that  would  spring  back  and  pass  over  obstacles 
but  not  break.  He  also  bought  and  brought  to  that 
town  the  first  mowing  machine. 

Up  to  about  1850  all  grain  and  hay  had  to  be  cut  and 
handled  entirely  by  hand.  It  was  no  uncommon  thing 
to  see  six  or  eight  mowers,  with  rhythmic  swing,  tread- 
ing the  hay  fields  from  "sun  up"  to  midday.  The  rak- 
ing, too,  was  all  done  by  hand,  and  It  took  every  member 
of  the  household  to  gather  up  and  haul  in  the  afternoon 
what  the  men  folks  had  laid  down  In  the  forenoon. 

The  first  mowing  machine  was  known  as  a  one- 
wheeler— "awkward,  heavy,  and  clumsy,"  it  Is  charac- 
terized by  a  man  who  used  one.  Then  came  the 
Eureka  machine,  with  high  wheels  and  the  cutter-bar 
working  In  front  and  between  them.  This  type  of  ma- 
chine is  In  use  at  the  present  time,  though  almost  en- 
tirely superseded  by  the  side  cutter-bar  type.     In  using 

[483 


FARMING  TOOLS  AND  IMPLKMHNTS 

the  Eureka  machine  the  team  was  dri\  en  hack  and  forth 
instead  of  around  a  piece. 

To  supp^lement  the  forks  hou^ht  at  the  store  the  hoys 
were  supplied  with  forked  sticks  cut  out  of  the 
forest  and  seasoned  a  little.  In  my  childhood  I  well 
remember  Father  cutting  a  stout  forked  sapling  for  me 
to  use  in  spreaciing  the  swath  as  I  followed  the  mowers. 
Rakes,  too,  were  contrived  at  home,  and  as  the  harvests 
became  larger,  the  bull  rake  — having  teeth  eighteen 
inches  long,  set  into  a  head  more  than  six  feet  wide  — 
was  invented  to  use  in  raking  after  the  load. 

One  of  the  earliest  horse  rakes  consisted  of  wooden 
teeth  more  than  six  feet  long  set  through  a  roller  — the 
roller  mounted  on  wheels.  The  teeth  were  pointed  only 
on  the  side  next  the  ground.  When  the  teeth  were  full 
the  thing  twisted  itself  over  and  started  the  teeth  on 
the  other  side  picking  up  a  mouthful.  It  was  never  very 
successful  and  was  quickly  forgotten  when  the  iron- 
toothed  rake  with  a  toot  dumper  came  into  use. 

From  the  settlement  of  the  country  down  to  the  close 
of  the  eighteenth  century  there  was  practically  no  im- 
proved farm  machinery,  in  the  sense  that  we  think  of 
improved  machinery  to-day.  The  use  of  steam  as  a 
motive  power  was  unknown  until  after  Pulton's  steam- 
boat plied  the  Hudson  River  in  iS()9.  Horse-power 
machinery  was  not  known  till  near  the  middle  of  the 
last   ccnturv.     The  chief  motive   power   for   all    farm 

[49] 


RURAL  LIFE  IN  LITCHFIELD  COUNTY 

work  prior  to  seventy-five  years  ago  was  the  ox  team. 
Horses  were  little  used  for  farm  work,  and  so  most  of 
the  hauling  of  heavy  loads  was  done  with  the  two- 
wheeled  ox  cart.  Many  of  these  were  homemade  and 
often  the  axles  were  made  from  hickory.  Practically 
the  only  iron  on  many  of  the  older  carts  was  the  tires. 
When  the  body  of  this  two-wheeled  cart  was  fitted  with 
sloping  racks  extending  many  feet  in  all  four  direc- 
tions, heavy  loads  of  grain  and  hay  could  be  hauled. 

In  the  earliest  days  all  of  the  long-distance  travel  was 
on  horseback,  as  the  bridle  paths  were  the  only  high- 
ways and  horseback  travel  was  the  common  means  of 
going  from  one  settlement  to  another.  When  roads 
became  more  common  heavy  loads  of  farm  produce 
were  occasionally  sent  to  the  Sound  at  the  south  or  the 
Hudson  River  at  the  west  by  the  slow  but  sturdy  ox 
teams.  The  extent  to  which  the  ox  team  came  into  use 
is  illustrated  by  the  account  given  by  a  man  now  living, 
whose  uncle  took  an  ox  load  of  gun  barrels  from  the 
place  of  casting  at  Mount  Riga  to  Harper's  Ferry,  sell- 
ing his  oxen  at  the  end  of  the  journey  and  making  the 
return  trip  on  foot. 


Do] 


CHAPTER  V 


FRUITS  AND   FRUIT  GROWING 


^X^JjO^.^  t^Hc  hirrn  of  Mr.  Solomon  Marsh  in 
^^■^^Tztlf^ij:  I-itchHeld,  supposed  to  be  about  Ii6 
years  old,  and  is  now  in  a  vigorous  state.  Its  trunk. 
two  feet  from  the  ground,  measures  eleven  feet  live 
inches  in  circumference.  The  circumference  of  its 
branches  is  nearly  eleven  rods  in  extent.  It  bore  in 
1835  one  hundred  bushels  of  apples  of  a  fine  quality." 

As  Litchfield  was  sold  for  settlement  in  17 18,  this 
apple  tree,  if  the  above  record  is  accurate,  must  have 
been  about  the  first  thing  planted  by  the  first  man  who 
settled  in  the  town.  However  that  may  be.  its  great 
size  and  \  igor  are  sufficient  warrant  for  the  statement 

[51] 


RURAL  LIFE  IN  LITCHFIELD  COUNTY 

that  the  hillsides  of  this  county,  with  their  natural  fruit 
soils,  furnish  some  of  the  best  apple  lands  in  the  coun- 
try. 

Very  little  attention  was  at  first  paid  to  the  selection 
of  choice  varieties  of  apples.  This  is  evidenced  by  the 
fact  that  very  old  orchards  of  the  present  day  often 
contain  none  of  the  choicer  kinds.  Most  of  the  very 
oldest  trees  around  abandoned  homesteads  bear  only 
native  fruit,  except  possibly  here  and  there  a  branch 
where  top-grafting  was  practised  after  the  tree  had  at- 
tained considerable  size.  I  recall  one  old,  decaying 
orchard  in  Salisbury  where  I  have  searched  for  several 
years  for  grafted  varieties  of  fruit,  but  without  avail, 
although  the  trees  have  nearly  all  borne  abundantly. 
Little  use  was  made  of  the  fruit  as  food  in  the  early 
days  of  the  colonists.  But  cider  was  made  and  was 
stored  and  used  in  great  quantities  on  every  farm.  It 
was  taken  to  church  to  drink  with  the  hearty  luncheon 
with  which  all  fortified  themselves  in  the  noon  hour 
between  the  long  discourses  of  morning  and  afternoon. 
In  one  case,  as  previously  recorded,  even  the  minister 
did  not  hesitate  to  increase  his  meager  salary  by  engag- 
ing in  this  traffic,  for  he  was  "hired  for  fifty  pounds  of 
lawful  money  and  the  privilege  of  running  the  town 
cider  mill." 

Stills  for  cider  brandy,  too,  were  common  every- 
where, and  large  quantities  of  the  cider  were  converted 


FRUITS  AM)   1  Kl  1  I    CROWING 

into  this  strong  intoxicant.  When  it  was  desired  to 
save  the  expense  or  the  trouble  of  making  this  bever- 
age, what  was  said  to  be  a  good  substitute  was  made  by 
freezing  cider  that  had  been  fermenting  in  barrels  for 
several  months,  fhen  the  brantly  would  collect  at  the 
center  unfrozen,  and  by  boring  a  hole  with  a  long  auger 
the  concentrated  product  could  be  drawn  off. 

From  Orcutt's  "History  of  Torrington"  the  follow- 
ing notes  have  been  gleaned:  "Many  of  the  early  set- 
tlers, having  been  reared  in  those  parts  of  the  State 
where  apples  had  become  an  important  commodity  in 
the  enjoyment  of  life,  were  led,  in  the  early  stages  of  the 
settlement,  to  give  much  attention  to  the  planting  of 
this  kind  of  tree.  This  is  very  evident  from  the  large 
quantity  of  apples  and  cider  found  here  in  1770  and 
afterwards.  In  i  773  there  were  four  cider  mills  on  the 
west  side,  and  at  least  one  brandy  still.  An  apple  or- 
chard would  not  reach  any  considerable  maturity  under 
twenty  years,  and  therefore  the  planting  of  such  or- 
chards must  have  been  one  of  the  great  enterprises  of 
the  town." 

T.  S.  GoKl.  in  his  "Reminiscences,"  writes:  "IVuits 
at  the  beginning  of  the  century  were  tew  from 
grafted  or  budtied  trees.  I  have  a  single  tree,  a  'Seek- 
nofurther,'  grafted  near  the  ground,  the  last  survivor 
of  an  orchard  which  is  said  to  have  been  planted  about 
1760.    A  few  Pearmain  trees  were  also  in  the  orchard; 


RURAL  LIFE  IN  LITCHFIELD  COUNTY 

the  rest  were  native  fruit— two  so  good  we  have  per- 
petuated them  by  grafting." 

"Peaches,  good,  bad  and  indifferent,  grew  abundantly 
from  the  stones  planted  in  the  fence  corners  of  the  gar- 
den or  orchard,  till  the  yellows  came  about  fifty  years 
ago  and  swept  them  all  away." 

"One  hundred  years  ago  the  culture  of  small  fruits 
for  market  was  unknown,  but  they  crept  into  city  and 
village  gardens.  Sixty  years  ago  President  Day,  of 
blessed  memory,  could  be  seen  from  the  Yale  dormi- 
tories hoeing  his  own  strawberry  bed.  Professional 
men  were  good  gardeners  and  the  best  farmers.  The 
introduction  of  new  and  choice  fruits  was  due  to  them." 

The  doctor,  the  minister  and  the  lawyer  always  had 
their  farm  to  eke  out  the  meager  incomes  of  their  pro- 
fessions. As  they  were  about  the  only  members  of  a 
community  who  indulged  in  the  luxury  of  books  and 
papers,  they  alone  were  in  a  position  to  know  what  new 
fruits  and  vegetables  were  being  introduced  from  other 
countries,  and  they  were  ever  ready  to  test  out  Interest- 
ing introductions. 

Nearly  all  of  our  improved  fruits  are  of  old-world 
origin.  The  wild  apple  was  brought  to  this  country  by 
the  first  settlers,  and  our  improved  varieties  had  their 
origin  in  what  are  known  as  chance  seedlings.  It  is  a 
well  known  fact  that  apples,  peaches,  cherries  and  some 
other  fruits  will,  when  grown  from  seed,  occasionally 

[54] 


FRUITS  AND  FRUIT  (JROWIXG 

develop  a  tree  of  choice  fruit.  By  grafting  or  budding 
from  this  natural  selection  a  new  variety  is  dissemi- 
nated, and  if  especially  choice  it  tlnds  widespread 
use.  Within  a  few  years  the  original  Rhode  Island 
greening  tree  was  still  standing,  just  over  the  Con- 
necticut line;  not  many  years  ago  the  original  Baldwin 
tree  stood  in  its  native  town  in  Massachusetts,  and 
until  within  a  few  years  there  existed  the  original 
northern  spy  tree  in  western  New  York.  lo-day  the 
spot  is  marked  by  a  monument  erected  by  the  many 
admirers  of  this  choice  variety.  It  may  not  be  amiss  to 
relate  here  the  tradition  that  the  seed  from  which  this 
choice  apple  was  developed  was  taken  to  western  New 
York  from  the  Holmes  farm  in  Salisbury.  Connecticut. 
A  few  years  before  his  death  the  owner  of  this  farm 
told  the  writer  that  he  still  had  on  his  farm  a  tree  the 
fruit  of  which  closely  resembled  the  northern  spy.  At 
any  rate,  authentic  records  of  the  origin  of  this  choice 
variety  show  that  the  seed  was  taken  from  Salisbury, 
Connecticut,  to  western  New  York. 

Grafting  and  budding,  as  means  of  propagating  fruit 
trees,  were  known  long  before  the  settlement  of  this 
country  — grafting  at  least  having  been  practised  by  the 
Romans.  The  method  of  root  grafting  of  the  small 
seedlings  is  probably  of  comparatively  recent  origin,  as 
most  of  the  older  trees  show  evidence  of  having  been 
top-grafted  quite  a  distance  above  the  ground.    This  is 

C55] 


RURAL  LIFE  L\  LITCHFIELD  COUNTY 

what  causes  the  distinct  enlargement  on  many  apple 
tree  trunks.  The  scion,  which  was  inserted  by  means 
of  the  cleft  graft,  often  grew  more  rapidly  than  the 
original  stock,  making  the  enlargement  or  bulge  at  the 
point  of  union. 

Choice  varieties  of  apples  and  pears  began  to  be 
propagated  shortly  after  the  American  Revolution. 
Aside  from  the  northern  spy,  to  whose  Connecticut 
origin  reference  has  already  been  made,  another  fine 
commercial  apple  was  originated  in  Litchfield  County. 
The  Hurlburt  stripe,  or  Hurlburt,  is  a  well  known  late 
fall  variety  that  originated  on  the  farm  of  Lemuel 
Hurlburt  of  Winchester,  and  is  first  recorded  in  the 
works  on  fruit  about  1850. 

The  growing  and  selling  of  nursery  stock  became  an 
established  business  about  one  hundred  years  ago.  As 
the  people  began  to  select  improved  varieties  and  the 
nurseries  began  to  propagate  and  disseminate  them, 
every  family  soon  made  a  practice  of  surrounding  their 
dwelling  with  choice  varieties  of  pears,  peaches,  plums, 
quinces  and  cherries,  to  say  nothing  of  the  smaller 
fruits,  such  as  grapes,  currants  and  gooseberries. 

The  native  berry  fruits,  such  as  the  strawberry,  the 
blackberry,  the  huckleberry,  the  blueberry  and  the  rasp- 
berry, were  common  everywhere,  either  in  meadow, 
swamp,  on  hillside  pastures  or  newly  cleared  forest 
areas;  and  so,  little  attention  was  given  to  the  garden 

[56: 


FRUITS  AND  FRUH"  GROWING 

culture  of  any  of  these  fruits  until  within  the  past  sixty 
years.  As  far  as  known,  the  strawberry  was  the  only 
berry  fruit  brought  under  cultivation  prior  to  1850. 

In  1802  Mr.  Blakcsley  of  Plymouth  writes:  "My 
method  of  making  a  nursery  is  to  separate  my  apple 
seeds  from  the  pomace  in  the  fall  of  the  year,  let  the 
seeds  freeze  one  night  in  the  latter  part  of  the  winter, 
plant  them  in  my  garden  in  the  spring,  and  after  they 
have  grown  Hvc  or  six  inches  high,  I  transplant  them 
and  tind  they  do  much  better  than  when  raised  in  the 
usual  way."  I  his  would  seem  to  show  that  it  was  this 
man's  practice  to  set  his  orchard  from  seedlings  of  the 
first  season's  growth.  Ihese  were  doubtless  grown  in 
the  orchard  until  one  to  three  inches  in  diameter  and 
were  then  top-grafted.  Mr.  Samuel  Bushnell  (the 
elder),  who  became  famous  as  an  orchardist  in  Salis- 
bury near  the  middle  of  the  past  century,  made  a  prac- 
tice of  growing  his  seedling  trees  by  planting  the  seeds 
in  his  corn  field  with  the  corn. 

In  the  earlier  reports  of  agricultural  societies  in  the 
State  there  are  interesting  notes  on  the  methods  in  use 
in  handling  apple  orchards.  One  man  in  this  county 
speaks  of  using  corn  cobs  about  his  trees,  while  his  son 
had  an  orchard  "on  which  he  put  stones  around  his 
trees  at  a  small  distance  from  the  trunk  and  thinks  them 
beneficial  to  his  orchard."  The  same  writer  concludes 
with  the  statement  that  "I  have  never,  however,  found 


RURAL  LIFE  IN  LITCHFIELD  COUNTY 

anything  so  good  for  my  apple  trees  as  top-tow  laid  on 
the  land  near  the  trees."  What  "top-tow"  is  can  only 
be  conjectured  from  the  knowledge  of  the  fact  that  flax 
was  grown  and  retted  on  nearly  every  farm,  and  the 
fiber  was  commonly  called  "tow."  The  coarse  bark  of 
the  plant  was  of  little  value  for  cloth  and  it  seems  most 
probable  that  this  got  the  name  of  "top-tow,"  and  being 
a  waste  product,  could  be  used  as  a  mulch  around  small 
trees. 

In  a  long  list  of  questions  submitted  for  answer  in  the 
"Transactions  of  the  State  Agricultural  Society,"  pub- 
lished in  1802,  the  following  will  indicate  the  trend  of 
thought  relating  to  apples  in  those  days  : 

"What  kind  of  apples  afford  the  best  cyder?" 

"What  is  the  best  management  of  apples  to  prepare 
them  for  cyder?" 

"Is  it  beneficial  to  house  them  in  heaps  until  mel- 
lowed, and  will  this  method  better  the  quality  of  the 
cyder?" 

"Are  grafting  and  innoculation  [budding]  of  fruit 
trees  in  general  use  and  the  best  method  known?" 

"Have  any  means  or  methods  been  found  successful 
in  destroying  the  worms  that  annoy  the  trees  or  pre- 
venting the  miliars  from  ascending  the  trees?" 

The  ravages  of  insects  are  not  confined  to  recent  ex- 
perience. One  of  the  worst  periodic  pests  was  the 
canker  worm.    In  the  "History  of  Ancient  Woodbury" 


FRUITS  AND  I  RL  ir  GROWING 

it  is  recorded  that  ''in  1791  the  canker  worms  devoured 
the  orchards  not  only  here  but  all  over  the  northeast- 
ern states,  and  their  ravages  were  repeated  the  two  fol- 
lowing years.  Orchards  standing  in  stiff  clay  soil  and  in 
low  grounds  which  are  wet  in  the  spring  escaped,  but  on 
all  kinds  of  light  and  dry  soil  the  trees  were  almost  as 
dry  on  the  first  of  June  as  the  first  of  January.  The 
same  insect  has  this  year  [1853]  attacked  the  orchards 
in  the  same  manner  and  with  the  same  result.  The 
trees,  the  fifteenth  of  June,  were  as  brown  as  in  autumn, 
and  almost  entirely  stripped  of  foliage.  The  fruit  has 
been  entirely  ruined,  although  at  present  writing  [Au- 
gust] the  trees  have  again  put  on  a  fresh  garment  of 
foliage.  The  eye  of  man  could  not  well  behold  a  denser 
shower  of  vermin  than  these  trees  presented." 

One  of  the  interesting  prejudices  of  one  hundred 
years  ago,  relative  to  orchard  management,  will  strike 
the  present-day  fruit  grower  as  queer,  if  not  amusing. 
This  was  the  prejudice  that  prevailed  against  the  grow- 
ing of  clover  in  the  orchard.  Several  writers  of  that 
time  refer  to  having  seen  or  experienced  injury  from 
growing  red  clover  in  the  orchards.  One  man  in  this 
county  reports  that  "he  liked  to  have  ruined  his  orchard 
by  raising  crops  of  red  clover  on  the  land,"  but  that 
when,  on  seeing  his  trees  decaying,  he  conjectured  the 
cause,  "he  left  off  raising  the  clover  In  his  orchard, 
when  it  soon  recovered."    Another  man  reports  similar 

[so: 


RURAL  LIFE  L\  LITCHFIELD  COUNTY 

injury,  but  adds  that  when  he  began  pasturing  the 
clover  the  injury  ceased,  and  his  conjecture  was,  that 
"by  carefully  feeding  it  to  keep  it  from  having  any 
bloom,  it  does  not  injure  as  it  manifestly  did  when  suf- 
fered to  come  to  such  maturity  as  to  fit  it  for  mowing." 

To-day  orchardists  find  that  there  is  nothing  more 
valuable  to  groAv  in  the  orchard  than  clover,  providing, 
of  course,  it  is  grown  at  the  right  time  of  the  year  and 
not  allowed  to  check  the  tree  growth  early  in  the  sea- 
son. Ihe  trouble  experienced  in  the  early  days  was 
probably  due  to  the  serious  check  given  the  growth  of 
the  trees  in  the  early  summer,  mainly  due  to  the  large 
use  of  soil  water  by  the  clover.  The  present-day  or- 
chardist  cultivates  his  orchard  lands  the  early  part  of 
the  season,  when  the  trees  are  growing  rapidly,  and  thus 
conserves  soil  moisture;  and  then  he  often  sows  clover, 
during  the  middle  or  late  summer,  in  order  to  check  the 
growth  of  wood,  so  that  it  will  harden  before  winter. 
The  clover  is  generally  plowed  under  early  the  next 
spring  and  serves  as  a  fertilizer  for  the  trees. 

In  the  "Report  of  Greenwood's  (Litchfield  County) 
Agricultural  Society  for  1845"  will  be  found  the  fol- 
lowing record  of  varieties  reported  on  by  Thomas  A. 
Miller  of  Torrington,  including  eight  varieties  of  win- 
ter apples:  "two  varieties  of  Pippins,  the  Seeknofur- 
ther,  Roxbury  Russett,  Gilliflower,  Pounder,  Peck's 
Sweet  and  Long  Island  Red  Cheek,  all  fine  specimens 

[60] 


FRUITS  AM)   1  Kl  II    (.KoWlNG 

of  their  kind."     Several  ot  these  will  be  recognized  as 
well  known  varieties  of  the  present  day. 

rhere  was  also  a  specimen  of  an  apple  by  Thomas 
M.  Clark,  "evidently  a  pounder."  With  this  apple 
there  was  a  newly  invented  machine  for  picking  apples 
consisting  of  a  hoop  made  of  wire  attached  to  a  hanille 
with  a  sack  suspended  from  the  hoop  resembling  an  eel 
pot.  "The  committee  think  it  a  valuable  instrument  for 
gathering  choice  fruit.  Donated  by  the  above  men- 
tioned Clark." 

There  are  now  a  few  bearing  apple  orchards  in  the 
county  that  are  sixty  to  seventy-five  years  of  age.  Most 
of  these  are  grafted  fruit,  which  shows  that  attention 
was  generally  drawn  to  the  value  of  the  apple  as  fooil 
only  within  about  the  last  hundred  years. 

Practically  all  of  the  best  varieties  of  to-day,  how- 
ever, were  grown  more  than  sixty  years  ago.  In  the 
Patent  Office  Report  for  1859  (in  which  division  the 
first  reports  on  agriculture  were  made  by  our  govern- 
ment), T.  S.  Gold  reports  twenty  varieties  of  apples, 
and  among  them  nearly  all  of  the  leailing  varieties  of 
the  present  day.  The  same  impression  of  decay  and 
decline  in  orchards  seemed  to  have  prevailed  then  as 
to-day,  for  .Mr.  (iold  reports:  "Within  the  past  twenty 
years,  orchards  in  this  part  of  the  State  have  declined 
rapidly,  many  old  trees  dying  or  ceasing  to  bear  good 
fruit.     Decay  dates  from  the  ice  storm  of  the  winter  of 


RURAL  LIFE  IN  LITCHFIELD  COUNTY 

1855-6.  Within  the  past  ten  years  I  have  planted  five 
hundred  trees,  most  of  which  are  in  tolerably  thrifty 
condition  and  some  are  beginning  to  bear." 

The  most  extensive  bearing  orchards  in  the  county 
to-day  are  found  on  the  Gold  Farm  on  Cream  Hill  in 
Cornwall,  and  in  the  towns  of  Morris,  Litchfield,  Salis- 
bury and  Bridgewater.  The  fact  has  been  well  estab- 
lished that  the  higher  hilltops  of  Connecticut,  with  their 
heavy  loam  and  clay-loam  soils,  produce  apples  of  un- 
surpassed flavor  and  keeping  qualities.  The  higher 
elevations  give  less  trouble  from  fruit  diseases  than  the 
valleys,  while  the  good  air  drainage  draws  the  cold  air 
down  the  hill  slopes  so  that  less  Injury  results  from  late 
spring  frosts.  The  air  of  the  hills,  being  cooler  than 
that  of  the  valleys,  causes  the  fruit  to  mature  more 
slowly,  and  this  gives  a  firmness  and  crispness  that  add 
greatly  to  the  flavor  and  keeping  qualities.  There  is  no 
comparison  in  flavor  between  the  fruit  of  our  Connecti- 
cut hills  and  that  of  even  the  famous  fruit  region  of 
Oregon.  For  several  years  T.  S.  Gold  of  Cornwall  sent 
his  apples  to  London,  with  a  market  more  exacting  than 
that  of  most  cities  in  this  country.  To-day  the  fruit 
from  this  farm  finds  a  ready  sale  in  a  select  trade, 
mostly  in  New  Haven  and  Bridgeport. 

Even  the  sons  of  sunny  Italy,  whose  love  of  fruits 
runs  back  through  many  generations,  have  recently 
migrated  to  our  western  Connecticut  hillsides,  where 


FRUITS  AND  FRUIT  GROWING 

they  are  likely  to  prove  to  the  native  stock  that  Litch- 
field County  hills  have  greater  possibilities  in  fruit  cul- 
ture than  we  have  ever  dreamed.  The  hilltops  of 
Salisbury  are  already  being  dotted  with  apple  and  peach 
orchards  and  the  lower  slopes  with  vineyards  that  give 
promise  of  bloom  and  truitage  beyond  the  highest  ex- 
pectations of  the  native  population. 


C^.i] 


CHAPTER  VI 


CATTLE  AND  THE  DAIRY 

ERY  little  farm  livestock  was  kept  in  the 
early  days  of  the  Colonies,  though  be- 
9^\tSjff^^  fore  the  time  Litchfield  County  was  set- 
/^^^ti^  tied  enough  had  been  imported  from 
England  to  furnish  draft  cattle  for  work 
and  cows  to  produce  enough  milk  to  meet  the  home  de- 
mands for  fresh  milk  and  for  butter  and  cheese.  There 
were  comparatively  few  areas  suitable  for  hay,  which 
was  so  necessary  to  provide  food  for  the  livestock  dur- 
ing the  long  winters.  As  the  fields  were  cleared  of 
forest  and  later  of  rocks,  the  amount  of  fodder  grown 
for  winter  use  was  increased,  and  the  number  and  va- 
riety of  farm  animals  were  gradually  increased. 

The  first  barns  were  hewn-timber  structures,  loosely 
covered,   built   mainly   for   the   shelter   of   grain   and 

[64] 


CATTLE  AM)    1111.   DAIRY 

fodder  rather  than  for  the  comfortable  housing  of  the 
cattle,  and  yet  these  heavy-timbered  barns  lasted  for 
years.  Though  I  do  not  know  the  oldest  in  the  county 
by  any  means,  yet  1  know  of  one  standing,  sound  and 
good,  which  sheltered  a  part  of  a  company  of  Hessians 
when  they  marched  down  through  Litchfield  County 
after  the  defeat  at  Saratoga  in  1777.  I  he  main  struc- 
ture was  flanked,  oftentimes,  by  open  sheds  where  the 
cattle  and  sheep  could  take  shelter  and  be  foddered. 

As  we  have  noted,  the  early  plan  of  settlement  ar- 
ranged for  the  commons  around  which  were  the  home- 
stead plots,  with  an  outlying  farm  to  be  later  improved 
and  reclaimed.  After  the  danger  from  Indians  and 
wild  beasts  became  lessened  it  is  probable  that  the  out- 
lying area  was  often  utilized  as  summer  pasturage  for 
young  stock  — a  custom  still  continued. 

The  town  of  Woodbury  early  set  aside  a  common 
pasture.  "At  a  lawful  town  meeting  the  8th  of  .March, 
1705,  it  was  voted  and  agreed  that  all  the  bare  hill  and 
ragland  from  the  highway  to  the  westside  through  pop- 
lar meadow,  down  to  the  highway  from  Whitcoak 
through  Sawteeth,  we  say  all  that  is  now  common  land 
unlaid  out,  is  and  shall  be  sequestered  land  for  common, 
for  the  feed  of  sheep  and  other  cattle  forever,  for  the 
use  of  the  inhabitants  in  gen'l."  A  pretty  extensive 
pasture,  and  yet.  if  it  is  still  "torcN  cr  kept,"  it  must  be 
all  too  small  for  the  flocks  and  herds  of  Woodbury. 

1:653 


RURAL  LIFE  IN  LITCHFIELD  COUNTY 

Helen  Evertson  Smith  says  that  in  1672  the  bequest 
of  a  cow  and  heifer  was  esteemed  of  more  than  ordi- 
nary value.  Trumbull  gives  the  value  of  a  good  milch 
cow  about  1640  as  thirty  pounds.  The  work  of  a 
"paire  of  Oxen  with  tacklin"  was  held  to  be  worth  two 
shillings  and  five  pence  for  '*six  howers"  in  winter  and 
"eight  howers"  the  rest  of  the  year,  eight  hours  making 
the  full  day's  work  for  cattle  except  in  heavy  upland 
plowing,  when  "six  howers"  were  considered  enough. 
"A  man's  working  hours  were  reckoned  from  sun  to 
sun  in  summer  and  from  six  to  six  in  winter;  but  the 
cattle  were  more  precious  than  men." 

For  a  long  time  there  seems  to  have  been  little  at- 
tempt at  butter  making,  and  in  the  early  days  so  much 
salt  was  put  into  it  as  to  make  it  scarcely  palatable  as 
an  article  of  diet.  In  one  of  Mrs.  Austin's  books  of 
early  New  England  life,  she  makes  the  house-mother 
put  a  pound  ball  of  butter  on  a  spit,  and,  deftly  turning 
it  at  exactly  the  right  distance  from  the  fire,  constantly 
sprinkle  it  with  flour  until  it  is  a  great  brown  crackling 
toothsome  mass,  which  she  serves  as  a  hearty  treat  for 
her  goodman's  supper. 

When  the  supply  of  stock  was  increased  enough  to 
warrant,  butter  and  cheese  were  made  in  the  summer  to 
supply  the  family  for  the  year.  Cattle  kept  for  dairy 
purposes  were  at  first  limited  to  the  needs  of  the  family. 
The  family  cows  were  not  expected  to  produce  milk 

[66] 


CATTLE  AND  TIIK  DAIRY 

more  than  six  or  seven  months  after  calving,  and  only 
at  that  season  of  the  year  when  nature  provided  an 
ahundance  of  pasture  feed.  All  the  grains  grown  were 
needed  to  support  the  family.  The  coarse  fodders  that 
were  harvested  whenever  the  work  could  be  done,  were 
the  chief  food  of  livestock.  The  haying  season  gen- 
erally lasted  from  the  time  the  rye  and  wheat  harvest 
was  finished  until  the  corn  was  ready  to  cut.  With 
loosely  constructed  stables  and  with  woody,  coarse  fod- 
ders that  could  barely  sustain  life  as  the  main  source  of 
feed,  such  a  thing  as  winter  dairying  was  never  heard 
of,  and  the  good  housewife  was  fortunate  if  she  got 
milk  enough  in  winter  to  feed  the  young  children. 

In  the  early  days  of  the  colonists  there  was  no  im- 
proved livestock  in  the  sense  that  we  think  of  improved 
stock  to-day.  The  cattle  and  sheep  brought  over  from 
England,  where  they  were  accustomed  to  a  milder  cli- 
mate, did  not  prosper  as  in  their  native  country.  It  is 
said  that  the  farm  animals  that  were  raised  here,  for 
the  first  two  or  three  generations,  were  smaller  and  not 
as  well  developed  in  their  useful  qualities  as  those  im- 
ported. This  was  probably  due  to  the  severe  climate, 
poor  shelter,  rough  pastures  and  the  poor  quality  of 
the  dried  fodder.  I  he  natural  grasses  were  not  as 
nutritious  as  those  later  introduced  from  Europe,  and 
the  clovers  were  at  first  entirely  unknown,  as  this  was  a 
crop  of  European  origin. 


RURAL  LIFE  LN  LITCHFIELD  COUNTY 

In  order  to  be  able  to  recognize  his  cattle  each  settler 
had  his  "ear  mark,"  which  was  registered  in  the  town 
records,  and  in  case  an  unknown  animal  was  found  it  was 
reported  and  a  description  was  "posted"  for  recogni- 
tion by  the  owner. 

While  distinct  breeds  of  cattle,  sheep  and  horses 
were  being  developed  in  England  and  other  European 
countries  during  the  middle  part  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury, we  have  no  records  of  any  of  these  breeds  being 
imported  to  our  shores  until  near  the  close  of  the  eigh- 
teenth and  the  early  part  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
Litchfield  County  can  justly  claim  credit  for  early  be- 
coming interested  in  the  introduction  and  development 
of  two  breeds  of  improved  stock  that  proved  of  great 
value  to  the  country.  These  were  Devon  cattle  and 
Merino  sheep.  A  few  specimens  of  the  famous  breed 
of  cattle  that  later  made  Litchfield  County  famous  for 
its  fine  working  oxen,  were  first  brought  to  Maryland 
in  1793  or  1794,  and  a  few  years  later  Lemuel  Hurlburt 
of  Winchester  bought  a  famous  bull  and  a  little  later 
several  heifers  from  these  early  importations.  These 
choice  specimens  were  the  foundation  stock  of  a  valu- 
able herd,  and  their  progeny  was  gradually  dissemi- 
nated throughout  the  county  and  the  State.  The 
Devons  proved  to  be  hardy,  rugged  animals,  well  suited 
to  our  rigorous  climate,  and  many  of  them  had  good 
dairy   qualities.      Their   distinctively  valuable   quality, 

[68] 


CAI  I  I  I     AM)    I  111     DAIRY 

li()\vc\  cr.  was  their  adaptability  tOr  use  as  working  cat- 
tle. Nearly  every  male  calf  was  saved  and  reared  tor 
this  purpose.  I  he  success  attained  in  subduing  our 
rough  hill  lands  can  be  ascribed,  in  no  small  degree,  to 
the  sturdy  qualities  of  this  \aluahle  breed.  Ihey  proved 
to  be  not  only  rugged  but  teachable,  quick  in  action,  and 
^ery  strong  in  proportion  to  their  si/e,  all  of  which 
were  decidedly  valuable  qualities  for  working  cattle. 

Near  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century  Litchfield 
County  fairs  were  famous  for  their  fine  "strings"  of 
working  oxen.  It  was  no  uncommon  occurrence  to  see 
town  "strings"  of  more  than  one  hundred  pairs  shown 
at  the  fair  at  the  county  seat,  (^f  these  cattle  the  hand- 
somest and  most  admired  were  the  Devons  because  of 
their  solid  red  color  and  fine  forms.  Choice  herds  of 
Devons  were  also  developed  on  the  farm  of  Mr.  Peck 
at  Watertown  and  by  the  elder  Dr.  Buell  of  Litchfield. 
The  latter  herd  has  never  lost  its  identity,  as  the  pres- 
ent Dr.  Buell  keeps  up  a  valuable  dairy  of  this  breed 
and  still  finds  ready  sale  for  all  the  steers  he  can  raise. 
This  herd  to-day  shows  exceptionally  good  milking 
qualities.  The  milk  is  above  medium  richness  as  re- 
gards tat  ami  is  considereti  \'cry  Naluablc  as  a  food 
for  infants  and  invalids. 

In  the  early  days  every  farmer  raised  his  own  beef 
and  pork,  and  it  was  no  uncommon  thing  for  the  farmer 
with  a  large  family  to  "put  down"  five  or  six  barrels  of 

1:69] 


RURAL  LIFE  LN  LITCHFIELD  COUNTY 

pork,  besides  packing  or  freezing  several  beeves  for 
home  consumption.  Beef  cattle  could  be  grown  and 
fattened  on  the  hill  pastures,  and  a  little  late-cut  hay  or 
corn  fodder  would  carry  them  over  winter.  Improved 
types  of  beef  cattle,  however,  were  little  known  until 
after  the  first  quarter  of  the  last  century.  Following 
the  introduction  of  the  Devons,  soon  came  fine  speci- 
mens of  the  Shorthorns,  and  later  the  Herefords,  com- 
monly known  as  the  "white  faces."  These  two  breeds 
did  much  to  improve  the  quality  of  the  beef,  and  it  was 
no  uncommon  sight  to  see  large  droves  of  sleek  beef 
cattle  being  driven  from  this  county  to  New  Haven  and 
Bridgeport  for  use  in  these  markets,  or  for  shipment  to 
New  York. 

The  Durham  breed  of  cattle  (later  known  as  Short- 
horns) had  beef  qualities  that  early  led  to  their  use  on 
many  farms.  It  was  found,  too,  that  some  families  or 
strains  of  this  breed  were  excellent  milkers,  especially 
for  the  first  six  months  of  lactation,  and  many  good 
dairies  of  grade  Shorthorns  were  developed  in  the 
towns  of  Goshen,  Litchfield,  Watertown  and  Wood- 
bury. The  Ayrshires,  too,  early  attracted  attention  for 
their  heavy  milking  qualities,  and  large  herds  of  the 
grades  of  these  two  breeds  were  early  developed  in 
connection  with  the  cheese  industry. 

About  the  middle  of  the  last  century,  following  the 
settling  of  central  and  northern  New  York  and  Ver- 

D03 


CATTLE  AND  THE  DAIRY 

mont,  the  "droving"  (driving)  of  young  cattle  from 
these  States  each  tall  became  a  big  business.  They 
were  commonly  brought  to  Connecticut  as  two-year- 
olds,  and  by  feeding  one  winter  with  coarse  fodder  and 
grain  they  made  a  sufficient  gain  to  pay  the  "cost  of 
keep,"  were  the  right  age  to  be  fattened  on  the  rich 
pastures  the  next  season,  and  were  ready  to  be  mar- 
keted early  the  following  fall.  There  was  always  a 
demand  for  beef,  and  beef  cattle  could  be  driven  long 
distances  to  market,  while  there  was  relatively  little  de- 
mand for  dairy  products  and  poor  facilities  for  their 
transportation.  This  gave  cattle  of  the  beef  type  a 
prominence  over  what  we  now  know  as  the  dairy  type. 
Down  to  1850  nearly  every  family  living  in  the  more 
populous  centers  kept  at  least  one  cow  and  thus  pro- 
duced their  own  milk  and  butter.  Such  a  thing  as  the 
village  milkman  was  unknown  except  in  large  cities  of 
the  State,  such  as  Hartford  and  New  Haven.  There 
was  little  demand  for  milk  and  butter  in  the  larger 
towns  until  after  the  middle  of  the  last  century. 

The  domestic  cheese  industry,  however,  early  found 
an  important  place  in  our  farming.  Our  southern  coast 
towns  and  the  West  Indies  made  a  market  for  cheese 
that  this  country  could  supply  more  easily  than  Eng- 
land, ami  with  the  development  of  the  coast  shipping 
trade  there  was  opened  up  a  good  market  for  cheese. 
Then,  too,   cheese  was  a  product  that  could  be  held 


RURAL  LIFE  IN  LITCHFIELD  COUNTY 

many  months  without  deterioration  and  would  remain 
firm  for  long  shipment  to  warm  climates.  Butter,  on 
the  other  hand,  would  deteriorate  with  age  and  could 
not  be  handled  at  all  for  a  southern  trade  except  in  win- 
ter. 

For  many  years  the  making  of  butter  was  limited  al- 
most entirely  to  the  family  supply  and  was  confined  to 
the  months  of  June  and  September.  The  butter  from 
the  spring  and  early  summer  pasturage  was  esteemed 
of  especially  fine  flavor,  while  that  of  the  cooler  months 
of  the  fall  was  thought  to  have  better  keeping  qualities. 
As  the  use  of  bacteria  cultures  had  not  been  discovered, 
their  part  in  the  production  of  fine  flavor  was  not  yet 
recognized.  When  one  considers  the  conditions  of 
barn  and  stable,  the  wonder  grows  that  butter  would 
keep  at  all.  One  reason  why  good  butter  was  made  was 
doubtless  because  during  the  butter-making  season  the 
cattle  were  kept  in  the  open  practically  the  whole  time. 
Even  the  milking  was  done  in  the  barnyard  or  in  a  small 
enclosure  in  a  corner  of  the  pasture.  Thus  there  was 
little  chance  for  contamination  by  undesirable  forms  of 
bacteria,  and  the  housewife  had  discovered  the  neces- 
sity of  scrupulous  cleanliness  in  the  case  of  all  milk 
utensils  in  order  to  make  good  butter. 

The  milk  was  drawn  into  open  wooden  pails,  strained 
and  set  in  wooden  buckets  or  later  in  earthen  crocks  or 
tin  pans.    Sometimes  a  spring  house  or  milk  room  was 


CATTLE  AND  THE  DAIRY 

provided,  but  ijuite  as  often  the  receptacles  were  set  on 
the  cooler  side  of  the  buttery.  If  it  had  one,  and  were 
left  undisturbed  until  the  milk  was  lobbered.  Then  the 
thick,  leathery  cream  was  taken  off  with  a  spoon,  or,  in 
the  very  early  days,  with  a  shell.  It  was  stored  in  a 
stone  crock  to  await  churning  day. 

The  earliest  type  of  churn  in  Connecticut  was  prob- 
ably merely  a  deep  crock,  and  the  mass  was  stirred  with 
a  wooden  paddle  until  the  fat  grains  separated  from 
the  milk.  .\  little  later  came  the  tall  dasher  churn, 
worked  up  and  down;  then  the  churn  with  revolving 
dasher.  Mr.  E.  S.  Stevens  of  East  Canaan  has  a  churn 
which  has  four  wooden  paddles  inside  to  beat  the  cream. 
It  was  bought  from  a  man  who  brought  it  on  his  back 
all  the  way  from  Newburg,  N.  Y.  When  the  butter 
came  the  mass  was  taken  out  ami  put  into  a  wooden 
bowl  and  worked  either  with  the  hands  or  with  wooden 
paildles  until  all  the  buttermilk  was  extracted. 

N'arious  old-time  suggestions  as  to  the  making  and 
keeping  of  butter  follow: 

Transai  tious  of  the  .1  gricitltural  Society, 
prime  J  in  iSoJ. 

"To  Preserve  Butter:  Take  butter  mailc  in  .May  or 
beginning  of  June  and.  being  perfectly  sweet,  roll  it  in 
rolls  of  two  or  three  pounds;  after  carefully  extracting 
the  milk  and  properly  seasoning  it,  put  into  the  vessel 

[73] 


RURAL  LIFE  IN  LITCHFIELD  COUNTY 

in  which  it  is  to  be  kept.  Make  a  brine,  boil  it,  and 
skim  it  till  it  begins  to  crystallize  and  when  it  is  per- 
fectly cold  cover  the  butter  with  it  and  carefully  cover 
the  vessel  from  the  air;  it  will  keep  good  during  the 
summer.  M.  Chaney." 


From  the  Report  of  the  Connecticut  State 
Agricultural  Society,  i8^g. 

"Two  tubs  butter  presented  by  E.  A.  Phelps  were 
manufactured  in  Colebrook,  Litchfield  County,  churned 
from  the  milk.  The  dairy  consists  of  twelve  cows;  the 
churning  is  performed  every  day.  The  churn  used  is  a 
large  dasher  churn  holding  forty  to  fifty  gallons,  which, 
with  a  thermometer,  combines  all  the  advantages  of  any 
churn  now  in  use.  Butter  taken  from  the  churn  is 
washed  in  pure  spring  water,  which  does  away  with  the 
necessity  of  working  the  butter  too  much — the  great 
fault  of  most  butter  makers.  No  ingredient  is  used  ex- 
cept pure  rock  salt  to  give  it  flavor  or  for  its  preserva- 
tion. The  tubs  used  are  made  of  white  hemlock,  a  kind 
of  timber  devoid  of  all  flavor  and  perfectly  sweet.  The 
tubs  are  soaked  some  three  weeks  in  a  strong  brine  be- 
fore packing.  When  they  are  full  they  are  set  away  in 
a  comrrfon  cellar  and  the  butter  is  marketed  in  Novem- 
ber and  December  to  private  families.  No  cheese  is 
made  from  the  dairy  and  no  difference  is  made  in  price 

1:74] 


i 


CATTLE  AND    1111.   DAIRY 

throughout  the  season.  I  have  eaten  butter  of  this 
manufacture  two  years  old,  sweet  and  good.  The  churn- 
ing is  performed  from  twelve  to  fourteen  hours  after 
milking.  The  hand  is  iwier  allozved  to  come  in  contact 
with  the  butter.  E.  A.  P." 

"P.S.     I  know  of  no  other  dairy  in  the  State  where 
butter  is  made  by  the  same  process." 


From  the  Siitne  Report. 

"L.AKKViLLF.,  Conn. 

"To  the  Committee  of  Conn.  Agrl.  Soc.  on  Butter: 

"This  butter  was  made  from  a  dairy  of  five  cows. 
Cows  feed  in  old  pasture,  stabled  and  soiled  night  and 
morning  with  grass  or  corn  fodder.  Milk  kept  in  tem- 
perature varying  from  fifty-five  to  sixty  degrees. 
Churned  at  sixty  degrees.  Milk  is  skimmed  before 
sour;  cream  churned  every  other  day  while  still  sweet. 
Salted,  at  first  working,  with  three-fourths  of  an  ounce 
to  a  pound.  Butter  worked  three  times,  being  careful 
not  to  work  it  enough  at  any  time  to  make  it  oily. 

".Mrs.  Asiibi.l  Lanikin." 

During  the  hot  part  of  the  summer,  when  there 
was  increasing  difficulty  in  getting  butter  "to  come," 
the    housewife   utilizetl    the    milk    supply    for   making 

C75: 


RURAL  LIFE  LN  LITCHFIELD  COUNTY 

cheese.  Every  farm  was  a  small  cheese  factory.  The 
milk  was  brought  in  at  night,  strained  and  set.  Very 
frequently  the  cream  was  taken  off  in  the  morning  and 
used  either  for  making  a  small  churning  of  butter  or  in 
cooking. 

If  the  cream  was  not  taken  off  it  was  thoroughly 
stirred  in  and  the  milk  was  then  brought  to  a  lukewarm 
heat.  The  morning's  milk  was  strained  and  left  until 
the  animal  heat  escaped,  then  the  two  were  mixed  and 
as  much  rennet  added  as  would  turn  it  to  a  curd.  I  find 
no  definite  measure  for  the  amount  of  rennet.  The  ex- 
perienced cheese  makers  must  hav^e  known  subcon- 
sciously when  they  had  enough  for  the  amount  of  milk. 
The  curd  was  supposed  to  set  in  one-half  to  three-quar- 
ters of  an  hour;  then  the  smooth  white  mass  was  cut 
into  cubes  with  a  broad-bladed  wooden  knife.  After 
cutting,  the  curd  was  left  for  half  an  hour  or  so  to  let 
the  whey  separate,  and  then  the  whey  was  dipped  off 
and  the  curd  again  cut,  this  time  usually  into  cubes 
about  an  inch  in  size.  After  a  good  deal  of  the  whey  had 
been  dipped  off  the  curd  was  ladled  into  a  cheese  basket 
to  drain.  The  draining  was  quite  complete.  Then  the 
curd  was  returned  to  the  tub  and  thoroughly  scalded 
with  hot  whey  "until  it  squeaked,"  when  it  was  ready 
for  the  final  draining,  the  salting  and  the  press.  The 
rule  for  salt  varies  from  "salt  to  taste"  to  "a  teacupful 
of  Liverpool  salt  to  ten  pounds." 

[76] 


CATTLK  AND    IIIi:   DAIRY 

The  presses  were  usually  ot  the  lever  type  and  the 
weight  at  the  end  of  the  lever  varied  with  the  si/.e  of 
the  cheese.  I  he  hoop  of  wood  was  placet!  on  the 
grooved  board,  then  Hlled  with  curd,  the  "runner"  put 
on  top,  then  the  board,  hoop,  and  cheese  were  slipped 
under  the  press.  I'he  cheese  remained  in  press  from 
twenty-four  to  forty-eight  hours.  Alter  coming  from  the 
press  it  was  oiled  all  over  with  melted  butter,  a  cheese- 
cloth band  put  around  it  and  folded  neatly  on  the  cheese- 
cloth at  the  top  and  the  bottom.  The  cheese  was  then 
ready  to  set  away  to  ripen  in  a  cool,  dark  room  — but  it 
must  be  "turned"  every  day  and  rubbeii  with  melted 
butter  — a  considerable  task  when  the  cheeses  were 
many  and  weighed,  as  they  often  tliil,  from  twenty-live 
to  thirty  pounds. 

One  of  the  earliest  ventures  in  the  marketing  of 
cheese  was  made  from  Goshen  — that  hill  town  which 
afterwards  became  so  noted  for  the  amount  and  quality 
of  its  cheese.  In  the  fall  of  the  year  1792  Alexander 
Norton,  being  sent  south  on  account  of  his  health,  pur- 
chased, to  sell  again  in  the  southern  markets,  several 
thousand  pounds  of  cheese.  Ihe  \  enture  was  so  suc- 
cessful that  he  continued  in  the  business.  Ihe  matter 
of  suitable  packages  for  the  cheese  gave  considerable 
trouble.  Up  to  this  time,  there  being  only  a  small  local 
market,  no  package  had  been  required.  At  first  he  used 
sets  of  shelves,  but  these  not  being  satisfactory,  he  had 


RURAL  LIFE  IN  LITCHFIELD  COUNTY 

timber  carved  into  the  proper  shape  and  cheese  casks 
made.  These  later  came  into  quite  general  use,  but 
were  not  as  satisfactory  as  the  round  boxes  afterwards 
made  for  the  carrying  of  twin  cheeses,  and  now  very 
common.  This  demand  for  a  suitable  carrying  package 
for  the  cheese  gave  rise  to  a  new  industry,  and  small 
shops  were  built  for  the  express  purpose  of  making 
cheese  boxes.  We  find  that  in  1839  Winchester  reports 
the  manufacture  of  4000  cheese  boxes  valued  at  $600. 
Norfolk  the  same  year  reports  the  value  of  cheese 
boxes  made  as  $9500,  or  over  60,000  boxes  if  they 
were  rated  the  same  as  those  made  in  Winchester. 

Annatto  was  first  used  for  coloring  cheese  in  Goshen. 
It  was  used  in  the  manufacture  of  cheese  in  the  home  of 
this  same  Alexander  Norton  who  established  the  south- 
ern cheese  trade.  At  first  it  was  used  by  rubbing  it 
through  a  fine  cloth  into  the  milk,  the  present  method 
of  dissolving  it  not  being  known.  The  more  highly 
colored  cheese  resulting  from  the  use  of  annatto  was 
much  sought  after,  always  bringing  several  cents  more 
per  pound  than  the  uncolored  cheese.  The  cheese  in- 
dustry grew  from  1807,  and  for  many  years  amounted 
to  270,000  pounds  a  year,  thus  bringing  to  the  farmers 
a  considerable  income. 

In  1808  a  pineapple  cheese  from  Holland  being 
brought  to  Goshen  from  New  York  by  a  member  of  the 
Norton  family,  Lewis  N.  Norton  began  to  make  experi- 


CATTLE  AND  THE  DAIRY 

ments  in  producing  a  similar  cheese.  With  appliances 
of  his  own  invention  he  commenced  the  manufacture  of 
pineapple  cheese  in  1809,  and  it  was  continued  from 
father  to  son  on  the  same  spot  for  nearly  one  hundred 
years.  fhe  pineapple  cheese  industry  has  now  gone 
from  LitchHeld  County  but  is  still  carried  on  in  New 
York  State  by  members  of  the  Norton  family. 

The  method  of  manufacture  in  brief  is  as  follows: 
The  milk  is  heated  and  rennet  added;  the  curd  is  put  in 
small  hoops  and  the  hoops  are  put  into  a  frame  thirty 
to  forty  feet  long  and  are  lightly  pressed  by  end  pres- 
sure. When  pressed  and  still  mellow  they  are  given 
their  peculiar  shape  by  the  curd  being  put  in  a  small  net 
and  hung  up.  The  net  gives  both  the  shape  and  the 
pineapple  markings.  After  being  thoroughly  dried 
they  arc  covered  with  a  peculiar  \  arnish  which  renders 
them  impervious  to  the  air  and  insures  their  keeping  in 
any  climate. 

The  manufacture  of  cheese  was  by  no  means  confined 
to  Goshen,  although  it  stands  as  pioneer  in  that  espe- 
cial branch  of  farming.  In  1839  Winchester  reports  to 
the  Secretary  of  State  285,000  pounds  of  cheese,  Bark- 
hamsted  70,000,  and  Norfolk  283,735.  The  trans- 
portation of  so  bulky  a  product  from  the  hill  towns  was 
quite  a  problem  and  for  years  could  be  solved  only  by 
team  cartage.  A  report  has  come  to  me  of  a  man.  now 
deceased,  who,  in  his  youth.  ilro\e  a  mule  team  trom 

[79] 


RURAL  LIFE  IN  LITCHFIELD  COUNTY 

Winchester  to  New  Haven,  thus  getting  to  the  coast- 
wise ships  part  of  Winchester's  output  of  cheese. 

It  would  hardly  be  fitting  to  close  this  discussion  on 
dairy  products  without  some  reference  to  the  enor- 
mous industry  of  condensed  milk  which  had  its  ori- 
gin in  Litchfield  County,  although  the  data  to  draw 
from,  in  spite  of  inquiry  and  research,  are  meager.  The 
first  condensed  milk  was  prepared  in  a  very  small  way 
in  a  building  still  standing  near  the  railway  station  in 
Winsted.  The  Borden  Condensed  Milk  Company  was 
organized  in  1863  and  continued  doing  business  in  Win- 
sted until  1866.  Afterward  A.  M.  Gale  established  a 
condensary  at  what  is  now  known  as  Burrville,  in  the 
town  of  Torrington.  The  old  accounts  note  that  he 
came  to  this  particular  place  because  of  the  abundance 
of  pure  cold  water.  Mr.  Gale  put  up  milk  under  the 
first  patent  for  condensing  milk  and  employing  sugar  in 
the  process.  The  business  was  soon  after  removed  to 
Dutchess  County,  N.  Y. 


C80: 


chafii:r  \  II 


SHEEP  AND  WOOL 

;»^vv|  if^Kvij»- 1  HOUGH  the  records  of  livestock 
^fc»'A'^V|  brought  by  the  first  settler  to  Litch- 
I^V'At>^i'A  %$a|  field  County  are  very  meager,  it  is 
■^■^'Yvl^^  no  doubt  true  that  sheep  formed  part  of 
^^^j  \  the  early  possessions  of  every  farmer. 
10  a  people  living  in  a  frontier  land,  where  winters 
were  long  and  tedious  and  the  distance  from  centers  of 
trade  was  great,  the  matter  of  warm  clothing  was  sec- 
ond only  to  the  question  of  food.  As  the  sheep  would 
furnish  material  for  both  food  and  clothing,  attention 
was  soon  turned  to  increasing  the  flocks. 

Notwithstanding  the  value  of  the  sheep  to  the 
farmer  and  his  family,  the  flocks  were  so  slowly  in- 
creased that  in  1660  they  were  freed  from  taxes  and 
ground  was  ordered  cleared  for  their  pasturage.     Ten 

[8.] 


RURAL  LIFE  IN  LITCHFIELD  COUNTY 

years  afterwards,  "for  the  encouragement  of  rayselng 
sheepe,"  the  general  courts  of  the  Colony  ordered  that 
ev^ery  male  person  in  the  several  plantations,  fourteen 
years  old  and  upwards,  that  was  not  a  public  officer, 
should  work,  one  day  in  June  of  each  year  in  cutting 
down  and  clearing  the  underwood  "so  that  there  may 
be  pasture,"  and  the  townsmen  in  the  respective  towns 
were  "to  appoint  the  places  where  they  should  worke, 
in  the  highways  or  commons  or  other  places  agreed 
upon."  Heavy  fines  were  threatened  upon  those  who 
failed  to  comply  with  this  ruling. 

Naturally  the  land  was  full  of  wild  beasts  which 
found  mutton  very  much  to  their  taste,  and  to  rid  the 
forests  of  these  pests  liberal  bounties  were  offered  by 
the  various  towns  for  the  killing  of  wolves  and  bears. 
As  late  as  1766  it  is  recorded  that  a  bear  appeared  in 
the  city  of  Hartford  and  was  killed  in  the  south 
meadow.  If  bears  boldly  walked  into  the  streets  of  the 
largest  towns,  what  must  have  been  their  boldness  in 
the  more  remote  districts!  After  several  years  of  set- 
tlement, the  nuisance  of  wild  animals  being  somewhat 
abated,  the  General  Assembly  frugally  repealed  the 
public  bounty  law,  with  the  result  that  the  ardor  of  the 
hunt  subsided.  Naturally  the  wolves  increased,  and  in 
1776  we  find  the  following  bill  passed  by  the  General 
Assembly: 

"Upon  the  memorial  of  Jacob  Beach,  of  Goshen, 
[82] 


SHEEP  AND  WOOL 

showing  to  this  Assembly  that  since  the  repeal  of  the 
late  law  granting  a  premium  for  destroying  wolves, 
they  have  increased  and  done  much  damage  by  killing 
sheep  in  said  Goshen,  and  consequently,  he  having  ex- 
pended considerable  time  and  money  lor  that  purpose, 
hath  since  the  first  day  of  May,  last,  taken,  killed  and 
destroyed  three  grown  wolves  in  said  Goshen;  praying 
for  such  a  sum  of  money  to  be  paid  him  out  of  the  pub- 
lic treasury  of  this  State  as  he  would  have  been  entitled 
to  receive  had  said  act  never  been  repealed:  as  per 
memorial  on  file :  Resolved  by  this  Assembly,  that  the 
memorialist  have  liberty  to  receive  the  sum  of  twelve 
pounds  lawful  money  and  the  Treasurer  of  this  State 
is  hereby  ordered  and  directed  to  pay  the  same  accord- 
ingly." 

In  1786  a  pack  of  four  wolves  descendetl  on  the  set- 
tlement of  Norfolk  and  eighty  men  went  out  to  hunt 
them,  fearing  their  depredations  on  the  flocks.  These 
two  incidents  indicate  something  of  the  natural  draw- 
backs to  the  sheep  industry  from  its  beginning. 

That  dogs  were  a  menace  to  flocks  even  in  those  early 
days  is  evident  in  the  ruling  that  in  1736  gave  to  the 
"sheep  selectman"  authority  to  kill  dogs.  In  one  town, 
at  the  town  meeting  held  April  26,  1742,  it  was  "Voted 
that  there  shall  be  three  pounds  drawn  out  of  the  town 
treasury  for  every  grown  wolf  that  shall  be  killed  within 
the  limits  of  this  town,  and  for  every  wolf  whelp  thirty 


RURAL  LIFE  L\  LITCHFIELD  COUNTY 

shillings.  And  it  is  also  voted  that  whosoever  shall  kill 
any  ratel  snak  or  snaks  within  the  town  and  bring 
rattles  shall  have  one  shilling  for  every  such  snak." 

A  possible  reason  for  the  lack  of  importation  of  a 
better  breed  of  sheep  or  new  blood  to  improve  the  old 
stock  is  hinted  at  in  an  essay  by  Dr.  Jared  Eliot,  grand- 
son of  the  Apostle  to  the  Indians.  He  says:  "A  better 
breed  of  sheep  is  what  we  want.  The  English  breed  of 
Cotswold  sheep  cannot  be  obtained,  at  least  not  without 
great  difficulty,  for  wool  and  live  sheep  are  contraband 
goods  which  all  strangers  are  prohibited  from  carrying 
out  on  pain  of  having  their  right  hand  cut  off." 

Following  the  act  of  1660,  which  made  sheep  exempt 
from  taxation,  were  other  public  acts,  such  as  the  pay- 
ing of  a  bounty  for  woolen  cloth  and  the  exempting  of 
sheep  from  seizure  for  debt,  which  were  designed  to 
favor  the  growth  of  the  sheep  industry. 

Many  stories  both  inspiring  and  pathetic  are  told  in 
connection  with  the  making  of  homespun  in  the  early 
times.  Although  not  a  Litchfield  County  incident,  the 
following  will  illustrate  the  straits  and  the  enterprise 
which  served  to  go  toward  the  making  of  men  who 
made  history.  "A  dozen  sheep  and  one  cow  comprised 
the  stock,  and  to  her  yield  of  milk  the  latter  added  her 
service  to  the  plow.  Corn  bread,  milk  and  bean  por- 
ridge were  the  staples  of  diet.  The  father  being  in- 
capacitated by  illness,  the  mother  did  the  work  in  the 

[84] 


SUKKP  AM)  WOOL 

house  and  helpctl  the  hoys  in  the  fields.  Once,  in  mid- 
winter, one  of  the  hoys  needed  a  new  suit,  and  there 
was  neither  money  nor  wool  in  the  house.  1  he  niother 
sheared  the  half-^rown  Heece  from  a  sheep  and  in  a 
week  it  was  made  into  clothing.  The  shorn  sheep,  so 
generous  in  such  need,  was  protected  hy  a  wrapping 
made  of  braided  straw.  Ihey  Ii\ed  four  miles  from 
the  meeting  house,  to  which  the  mother  and  her  two 
boys  walked  every  Sunday.  Ihc  boys  became  Samuel 
and  liliphalet  Xott,  one  a  famous  preacher,  one  the 
president  of  Union  College." 

The  same  way  out  of  a  similar  difficulty  is  related  of 
one  of  the  Litchfield  County  towns,  with  the  difference 
that  the  shorn  sheep  was  provided  with  a  dress  fash- 
ioned from  an  old  blanket. 

In  the  special  report  on  the  "Sheep  Industry  of  the 
United  States"  it  is  stated:  "It  is  probable  that  the  first 
sheep  brought  to  this  country  were  of  the  kind  common 
to  Lngland  at  the  time  and  were  the  Wiltshire  and 
Romney  Marsh,  the  Herefordshire,  the  Norfolk  and 
the  old  Southdown  or  Sussex  sheep;  at  least  all  the 
characteristics  of  these  breeds  could  be  seen  in  the  dif- 
ferent flocks  in  the  eastern  States  at  the  beginning  of 
the  present  century  [1801]."  The  late  T.  S.  Gold 
characterizes  the  sheep  of  the  early  part  of  the  century 
in  Litchfield  County  as  being  "long-legged,  scraggy  ani- 
mals, with  thin,  coarse  wool,"  and  adds:  "It  naturally 

[85: 


RURAL  LIFE  IN  LITCHFIELD  COUNTY 

follows  that  the  choice,  fine-wooled  sheep  became  im- 
mensely popular." 

To  Colonel  David  Humphreys,  of  New  Haven,  Is 
due  the  credit  of  bringing  to  Connecticut  the  first 
Merino  sheep,  the  Introduction  of  which  did  so  much 
for  the  wool  Industry  of  the  State.  So  great  a  benefit 
was  this  considered  that  the  fact  Is  recorded  upon  his 
tombstone  In  an  eloquent  Latin  epitaph,  which  states 
that  he  was  a  man  of  great  learning,  member  of  various 
distinguished  societies,  a  friend  of  Washington  and 
ambassador  to  the  courts  of  Portugal  and  Spain.  The 
Latin  runs:  "Iberia  reverstis  natale  solum  vellere  vere 
aiireo  ditavit" ;  translated,  "On  his  return  from  Spain 
he  enriched  his  native  land  with  the  true  golden  fleece." 

The  Merino,  an  especially  fine-wooled  sheep,  is 
thought  to  have  come  from  Asia  Minor,  following  the 
line  of  civilization  along  the  shores  of  the  Mediter- 
ranean into  Spain.  For  years  the  breed  was  cherished 
In  Spain  as  one  of  its  choicest  treasures,  and  as  long  as 
Spain  retained  her  power  as  a  nation  the  exportation  of 
the  sheep  was  forbidden.  A  few  were  smuggled  out  of 
the  borders,  and  some  were  given  as  kingly  favors  to  va- 
rious countries.  A  detailed  account  of  the  importation 
of  the  Merinos  into  this  country,  however  Interesting  It 
might  be,  would  be  too  long  for  these  pages.  Suffice  It 
to  say  that  the  Introduction  of  this  breed  into  the  farm- 
ing  regions   of  northwestern   Connecticut   stimulated, 

[86] 


sni:i:p  and  wool 

more  than  anythinjj;  else,  the  wool  industry.  Colonel 
Humphreys,  himself  a  woolen  manufacturer,  reali/eii 
more  keenly  than  the  a\  erage  farmer  the  necessity  of 
producing  a  finer  grade  of  wool.  The  first  importation, 
in  1803,  was  about  seventy  head  and  these  were  leased 
or  rented  out  to  farmers.  They  were  used  mainly  in 
trying  to  improve  the  native  sheep,  but  owing  to  our 
cold,  rugged  climate  and  the  poor  shelter  afforded,  the 
pure-bred  animals  did  not  prosper  at  first,  and  for  some 
reason  failed  to  impress  their  good  qualities  on  the 
native  stock,  when  crossed  with  them.  Larger  importa- 
tions were  made  between  1808  and  18  10,  and  some  of 
these  laid  the  foundation  of  valuable  strains  of  Ameri- 
can Merinos,  especially  the  Delaine  Merinos  that  later 
became  famous  in  Ohio. 

I  he  strain  of  this  famous  breed  that  gained  the 
greatest  fame  was  the  so-called  Vermont  Merinos, 
which  became  renowned  in  that  State  nearly  fifty  years 
after  their  first  introduction  into  Connecticut.  This 
strain  of  Merinos  a  Litchfield  County  man  holds  the 
credit  for  preserving  and  developing  in  their  full  purity. 
Thomas  Atwood  of  Woodbury,  recognizing  the  possi- 
bilities of  the  breed,  bought  se\eral  head  from  Colonel 
Humphreys's  first  importation  and  continued  to  breed 
and  develop  them  as  a  pure  strain  for  over  thirty  years. 
About  1835  Mr.  Hammond  of  Middlebury,  \'er- 
mont,  came  to  Connecticut  in  search  of  a  pure  strain  of 

[87] 


RURAL  LIFE  IN  LITCHFIELD  COUNTY 

Merino  blood  and  decided  that  what  Mr.  Atwood  had 
developed  most  nearly  represented  his  ideal,  and  he 
took  several  head  with  him  to  northern  Vermont. 
Within  the  next  twenty  years  this  Hammond  strain  of 
Merinos  became  world-renowned  and  brought  almost 
fabulous  prices  for  those  times.  For  instance,  for  one 
famous  ram  of  the  Atwood  strain  Mr.  Hammond  re- 
fused five  thousand  dollars,  saying  that  he  "could  not 
afford  to  sell  his  best  until  he  was  ready  to  go  out  of  the 
business  of  breeding." 

Beginning  with  the  peace  of  Ghent  in  1815,  at  the 
close  of  the  second  war  with  England,  the  tariff  on  wool 
having  been  removed,  there  was  a  decline  in  the  fine 
wool  industry  until  about  1825.  This  will  account  In 
part  for  the  failure  to  develop  more  generally  the 
Merino  breed  in  New  England  during  the  first  twenty 
years  following  their  introduction.  Their  impress, 
however,  was  fixed  on  a  few  flocks,  and  when  conditions 
again  became  favorable  for  the  development  of  woolen 
manufactures,  the  Merino  type  of  sheep  was  easily  re- 
established. Beginning  about  1825,  there  was  a  period 
of  some  twenty  years  when  the  fine  wool  industry  of 
western  Connecticut  attained  a  high  degree  of  develop- 
ment. Dairying  had  not  been  introduced  beyond  the 
needs  of  the  farmer's  family,  as  there  were  very  few 
cities  to  demand  dairy  products;  but  for  a  good  grade 
of  wool,  both  for  household  manufacture  and  for  the 

[88] 


SHEEP  AND  WOOL 

rapidly  increasing  wool  factories,  there  was  an  ever  in- 
creasing demand.  In  towns  along  the  southern  edge  of 
the  county  were  kept  several  flocks  of  Merinos  that 
were  developed  from  the  earlier  importations,  made  at 
the  instigation  of  Colonel  Humphrey,  while  many  im- 
portations of  Saxony  Merinos  were  made  between 
1820  and  1840. 

In  1824  the  Saxony  Merinos  were  introduced  into 
the  State  and  most  of  the  flocks  crossed  with  them.  Mr. 
Samuel  Scoville  of  Salisbury  commenced  a  Saxony  flock 
that  year  and  maintained  it  for  many  years.  Mr. 
Hurlburt  of  Winchester,  in  connection  with  Henry 
Watson  of  East  Windsor,  purchased  some  of  the  best 
Saxons  of  the  Hrst  importations;  and  Charles  B.  Smith, 
of  Walcottville,  at  a  later  day,  made  importations  from 
the  best  Saxony  flocks.  In  1846  John  Ward  of  Salis- 
bury had  a  flock  of  seven  hundred  Saxons,  with  fleeces 
averaging  two  and  one-half  pounds.  R.  G.  Camp  of 
Litchfield  had  one  humlred  and  seventy  Saxons,  derived 
mostly  from  the  flock  of  Charles  B.  Smith.  The  wool 
was  very  fine,  averaging  about  three  pounds  to  the 
sheep,  and  sold  for  sixty-six  or  sixty-eight  cents  per 
pound. 

About  1850,  during  the  time  when  the  wool  industry 
was  at  its  height,  wool  buyers  went  everywhere  through 
the  country.  Among  these  was  John  Brown  of  Har- 
per's lerry  fame.     lie  and  his  partner,    rom  Swift  of 


RURAL  LIFE  IN  LITCHFIELD  COUNTY 

Amenia,  who  was  known  to  his  associates  as  Saxony 
Swift,  went  through  this  and  neighboring  counties,  buy- 
ing and  trading  both  wool  and  sheep. 

The  home  manufacture  of  wool  is  as  follows:  When 
the  shad  bush  was  in  blossom,  the  sheep  should  be 
sheared.  This  was  done  by  the  men,  the  boys  attending 
to  the  preliminary  washing  and  having  great  larks 
dragging  the  reluctant  sheep  into  the  water  and  giving 
it  a  good  scrubbing— often  getting  wetter  than  the 
sheep.  On  the  clean  barn  floor  the  shearer  took  his 
seat  and  skilfully  held  the  struggling  victim  with  his 
feet  and  legs  while  he  clipped  the  fleece  with  the  spring 
shears,  which,  by  the  by,  have  altered  in  pattern  scarcely 
a  whit  in  two  hundred  years.  When  the  flock  was 
sheared,  the  wool  was  scoured  with  lye  to  remove  the 
yelk;  then,  before  carding,  was  slightly  oiled  to  aid  in 
straightening  the  fibers.  In  the  early  days  the  wool  was 
dyed  in  the  fleece,  but  after  the  establishment  of  the 
carding  mills  the  dyeing  process  was  deferred  until  after 
the  yarn  was  spun.  There  is  a  tradition  that  the  wool 
of  black  sheep  was  especially  in  vogue  with  the  Quakers 
because  it  required  none  of  the  embellishment  of  the 
dye-pot. 

The  process  of  dyeing  was  sometimes  a  complicated 
one,  requiring  manipulation  of  dye-pots  and  no  end  of 
mordants.  Blue  was  a  favorite  color,  and  the  indigo 
dye-pot  was  a  part  of  the  equipment  of  every  kitchen. 

:9on 


SHEEP  AND  WOOL 

I  have  been  told  that  the  deep  purple  paper  in  which  the 
old-time  cone-shaped  sugar  loaves  were  wrajipcd  was 
always  carefully  saved  and  used  for  dyeing,  especially 
fine  lamb's  wool,  which  was  designed  for  making  gar- 
ments for  the  baby. 

Early  experiments  were  made  in  growing  various 
European  plants  for  dyestuffs,  especially  in  the  South. 
There  is  little  on  record  of  such  attempts  in  Litchfield 
County,  but  in  the  history  of  Goshen  mention  is  made 
of  the  fact  that  Lewis  Mills  Norton,  one  of  the  fore- 
most men  of  his  time,  raised  teasels  for  fulling  cloth, 
and  "woad,  a  fermentative  addition  to  indigo  in  the 
pastel  vat.  Woad  was  raised  to  the  amount  of  $1000 
annually  during  part  of  the  years  between    18 19  and 

1844." 

It  is  quite  possible  that  from  this  attempt  to  raise  the 
teasels  for  the  fulling  of  the  cloth  came  the  wild 
teasels  which  are  occasionally  found  throughout  the 
county. 

In  connection  with  dyestuffs  it  might  not  be  amiss  to 
suggest  that  the  occasional  plants  of  the  wild  mignon- 
ette {Resida  lutola)  may  be  the  persisting  descemlants 
sprung  from  some  early  attempt  to  cultivate  the  plant 
for  the  sake  of  the  good  yellow  which  was  obtained 
from  an  infusion  of  this  plant.  One  common  name, 
dyer's  weed,  alludes  to  its  coloring  properties. 

After  cleaning  thoroughly  and  dyeing,  the  wool  was 

:9i] 


RURAL  LIFE  IN  LITCHFIELD  COUNTY 

ready  for  carding — a  constant  evening  occupation.  The 
hand  cards  were  simply  light,  handled  boards,  of  conve- 
nient size,  on  which  was  firmly  fixed  a  piece  of  leather 
stuck  full  of  fine  wire  teeth.  These  cards  were  usually 
the  product  of  the  farmer's  leisure  hours  in  the  long 
winter  evenings. 

The  manipulator  of  the  cards  would  hold  one  in  her 
left  hand  resting  on  her  knee  with  the  handle  from  her. 
With  her  right  hand  she  would  detach  from  the  fleece 
enough  of  the  uncombed  wool  to  make  a  roll,  catch  it 
lightly  back  and  forth  on  the  card,  then  seize  the  other 
card  in  her  right  hand  and  deftly  comb  it  until  the 
tangled  fibers  were  straightened;  then  by  a  dexterous 
movement  she  would  coax  it  into  a  light,  fluffy  roll  ready 
for  the  wheel.  It  was  fascinating  work  to  watch, 
though  monotonous  to  do,  and  the  finished  product  was 
always  a  joy  to  the  children,  who  had  often  to  be  re- 
proved for  slyly  pinching  or  fondling  the  fleecy  rolls. 

The  establishment  of  carding  mills  was  about  the 
first  step  toward  lightening  the  labor  of  the  home. 
For  many  years  the  more  conservative  of  the  women 
refused  to  send  out  the  wool  to  be  carded,  claiming  that 
the  rolls  were  more  uneven  and  harder  to  run  into  a 
firm,  even  yarn  than  the  hand-made  rolls,  yet  by  1870 
hand-carding  was  almost  a  lost  art. 

This  date  may  seem  a  very  recent  one,  and  some 
may  wonder  if  the  home  manufacture  of  woolen  prod- 

1:92] 


SHEEP  AND  WOOL 

nets  did  indeed  come  down  to  such  recent  times.  Un- 
doubtedly most  of  the  manufacture  of  woolen  goods, 
especially  of  all  kinds  of  woolen  cloth,  had  been  taken 
from  the  homes  into  small  factories,  as  we  shall  pres- 
ently see,  but  during  and  after  the  Civil  War  many 
farms  produced  their  own  wool,  and  it  was  spun  at 
home  into  yarn  for  the  stout,  home-knit  stockings,  tip- 
pets, wristers,  and  mittens. 

An  old  lady,  who  died  many  years  ago,  told  me  in  my 
childhood  as  we  stood  by  a  great  thorn  tree  near  her 
home,  that  when  she  was  a  girl,  about  1830,  after  the 
sheep  were  sheared  the  fleeces  were  put  in  a  great  linen 
sheet  and  were  firmly  pinned  into  a  bundle  to  send  to  the 
carding  mill.  "And  because  pins  were  scarce  in  those 
days  we  girls  always  used  to  come  down  to  this  thorn 
bush  and  cut  off  the  long,  slender  thorns  to  fasten  the 
bundle.  Father  never  cut  this  bush  when  he  trimmed 
the  roadsides." 

The  wool,  when  back  from  the  carding  mill,  was 
deftly  spun  by  the  women  of  the  household  on  the  great 
wheel  — and  a  more  graceful  occupation  never  engaged 
the  attention  of  woman.  Back  and  forth  the  spinner 
would  walk,  holding  the  roll  lightly  in  her  left  hand, 
while  with  her  right  she  kept  the  wheel  in  motion;  and 
the  whir  of  the  wheel  and  the  hum  of  the  spindle,  as  it 
wound  upon  itself  the  just  made  yarn,  m;ule  a  pleasant 
accompaniment   to   the   song   of   the   spinner.      There 


RURAL  LIFE  IN  LITCHFIELD  COUNTY 

seemed  to  be  something  in  this  creative  work,  this  mak- 
ing of  a  new  thing  out  of  the  raw  material,  which 
inspired  the  song— at  least  I  never  knew  a  spinner 
working  in  her  home  by  herself  who  didn't  sing  as  she 
wrought. 

After  the  yarn  was  spun  and  skeined  it  was  ready 
to  be  wound,  and  for  this  purpose  the  skein  was  put 
upon  the  swifts,  whence  it  could  be  wound  Into  balls 
or  on  shuttles  for  weaving.  Usually  the  cloth  for  men's 
use  was  the  plain  homespun  of  whose  durability  an  old 
man,  who  was  one  of  a  large  family,  said:  "Mother'd 
weave  a  web  for  the  oldest  boy's  suit;  when  he  outgrew 
it,  it  was  handed  down  to  the  next,  and  so  all  the  six  had 
a  chance  at  it.  When  the  youngest  boy  had  outgrown 
it  and  the  suit  was  still  as  good  as  ever,  the  Lord 
created  the  moth  to  eat  it  up." 

In  the  very  earliest  times  the  cloth  was  worn  as  it 
came  from  the  loom,  there  being  no  means  of  dressing 
it.  In  later  days  fulling  mills  were  erected  in  various 
parts  of  the  country  and  the  fabric  was  given  a  crude 
dressing. 

The  old  process  of  fulling  is  thus  described:  "The 
fulling  of  cloth  is  commenced  by  scouring  the  fabric  in 
water  holding  in  suspension  an  aluminous  clay  called 
fuller's  earth,  or  other  detergent,  to  absorb  the  grease. 
It  is  then  washed  and  beaten  by  heavy  wooden  mallets 
in  a  trough,  soap  and  hot  water  being  copiously  used  in 

C943 


SHEEP  AND  WOOL 

the  operation,  whereby  the  cloth  acquires  body  and 
thickness  by  a  shrinking  or  condensing  of  the  web  close 
and  compact,  and  increases  its  beauty  and  firmness. 
The  teasels  were  used  to  'pick  up  the  nap.'  " 

Aside  from  cloth  tor  family  wear,  the  mother  and  sis- 
ters wove  the  heavy  coverlet  of  intricate  design  which 
is  now  regarded  as  such  a  treasure,  lighter  rose 
blankets,  soft  flannel  and  various  stuffs  of  mixed  wool 
and  linen.  They  were  great  knitters,  too,  and  many  are 
the  stories  of  the  mittens  knit  before  breakfast  to  take 
the  place  of  those  lost  the  day  before. 

The  washing,  preparatory  to  the  animals'  clipping. 
was  a  task  that  always  interested  the  boys.  Wool  in 
those  days  was  sold  washed  and  sometimes  scoured, 
and  particularly  if  the  wool  was  wanted  for  home  use 
the  scouring  was  necessary.  The  washing  removed 
most  of  the  winter's  accumulation  of  hay  seed,  chaff  and 
dirt,  while  the  scouring  was  designed  for  removing  the 
grease  or  yelk.  The  loss  by  the  removal  of  these  mate- 
rials was  known  as  the  shrinkage.  This  is  a  variable 
factor  with  wool  in  general,  but  with  the  Merino  sheep, 
whose  wool  is  always  very  oily,  the  shrinkage  was  never 
less  than  one-half.  The  rapid  development  of  woolen 
factories,  all  over  Xew  England,  provided  a  ready  sale 
for  all  the  wool  the  farmer  wished  to  sell.  As  late  as 
1840,  homespun  was  the  common  clothing  worn  by  the 
members  of  nearly  every  family  in  the  rural  towns. 

L9n 


RURAL  LIFE  IN  LITCHFIELD  COUNTY 

With  the  opening  up  of  the  great  central  West,  and 
later  with  the  development  of  ranching  in  the  far  West, 
the  price  of  wool  dropped  and  the  Eastern  farmer 
found  himself  unable  to  compete  with  the  wool  grown 
on  these  vast  areas  of  cheap  land,  and  so,  in  many  sec- 
tions, he  began  to  turn  his  attention  to  dairy  farming. 

The  passing  of  the  animal  with  the  "golden  hoof" 
had  its  drawbacks.  Sheep,  by  browsing,  kept  the  brush 
in  check,  and  this,  together  with  the  fineness  and  the 
high  fertilizing  value  of  their  droppings,  made  them 
the  best  class  of  livestock  to  improve  pastures.  The 
Goshen  hardback  {Potentilla  fruticosa),  a  hardy  and 
persistent  shrub  that  is  now  filling  up  many  pastures  to 
the  exclusion  of  grasses  and  clovers,  was  not  known  in 
Litchfield  County  until  after  the  sheep  industry  waned. 
To-day  it  is  the  greatest  pasture  pest  on  many  acres  of 
land. 

Much  of  the  land  in  this  county  is  better  suited  to 
sheep  than  to  any  other  livestock.  One  drawback  to 
keeping  sheep  is  the  poor  fences;  the  stone  walls  which 
were  once  efficient  barriers  have  now  become  dilapi- 
dated and  the  wooden  fences  also  are  often  in  a  state  of 
decay.  Where  modern,  woven-wire  fencing  is  adopted 
there  is  yet  a  valuable  place  for  this  class  of  livestock. 

As  a  means  of  furnishing  the  home  with  a  source  of 
meat,  sheep  will  again  have  a  useful  place  on  many 
farms,  and  with  the  growing  influx  of  summer  residents 

1:96] 


SHEFP  AND  WOOL 

a  fine  quality  of  Iamb  is  already  in  demand.  It  should 
be  realized  that  the  fine-wooled  type  of  sheep  no  longer 
has  a  place  here,  because  the  chief  demand  is  for  a  fine 
quality  of  lamb  and  mutton.  Several  of  the  so-called 
Down  breeds  are  noted  for  their  early  lambs  and  their 
wool  is  of  fair  quality  and  quantity. 

By  buying  up  and  fencing  some  of  the  rougher  areas 
of  Litchfield  County  and  stocking  the  same  with  a  good 
grade  of  mutton  sheep,  a  large  business  could  be  devel- 
oped with  such  cities  as  New  Haven,  Bridgeport  and 
Waterbury,  with  a  prospect  of  good  returns  on  the  in- 
vestment. 


[97] 


CHAPTER  VIII 


THE    MODERN    FARM 

ARMING  has  so  changed  in  the  past  fifty 
years  that  one  almost  needs  a  new  vocabu- 
lary to  express  the  operations  of  the  farm 
as  now  conducted.  Diversity  is  still  the 
rule  in  IJtchfield  County,  but  is  modified 
on  most  farms  by  having  a  leading  specialty.  In  the 
majority  of  cases  this  specialty  is  dairying,  which  in 
general  means  the  production  of  market  milk,  either 
for  local  markets  or  for  shipment  to  New  York.  This 
leading  specialty  is  commonly  supplemented  by  the  pro- 
duction of  potatoes  and  other  garden  truck,  by  the 
production  of  small  and  large  fruits  for  market,  or,  in 
the  Housatonic  valley,  by  the  growing  of  tobacco.  On 
many  farms  poultry  forms  an  important  part  of  the 
cash  income  of  the  farmer,  and  wherever  dairy  by-prod- 

[98] 


THE  MODERN  FARM 

nets  are  available  as  poultry  teed,  this  branch  ot  tann- 
ing proves  especially  profitable. 

On  account  of  the  ready  access  by  rail  to  the  New 
York  markets,  the  shipping  of  milk  early  became  an 
important  branch  of  farming.  A  New  York  milk  com- 
pany established  shipping  stations  along  the  I  lousatonic 
Railway  as  early  as  1870,  and  since  then  this  county  has 
been  an  important  source  of  supply  for  that  city.  7  he 
milk  shipping  industry  and  the  cooperative  creamery 
proved  a  great  boon  to  the  farmers  of  Litchfield 
County,  as  well  as  to  the  rest  of  New  England.  It  re- 
moved from  the  household  the  laborious  task  of  caring 
for  the  milk  and  of  manufacturing  it  into  butter 
or  cheese.  Xo  more  important  improvement  has  come 
to  our  farm  life  than  this,  for  with  the  manufacture  of 
the  dairy  products  added  to  the  ordinary  duties  of  the 
household,  the  engrossing  labor  and  cares  of  our  early 
farm  mothers  were  certainly  burdensome.  It  is  within 
the  memory  of  some  of  the  older  mothers,  too,  that  all 
of  the  cooking  had  to  be  done  in  the  open  fireplace  and 
all  of  the  baking  in  the  big  oven,  which  had  to  have  its 
walls  thoroughly  heated  by  burning  hardwood  in  it. 
after  which  it  must  be  cleaned  out  preparatory  to  bak- 
ing the  pies  and  cakes. 

To-day  many  farm  homes  are  as  well  equipped  as  the 
city  flat.  Not  a  few  farm  houses  have  hot  and  cold 
water  throughout,  while  furnace  or  steam  heat  antl  a 

[99] 


RURAL  LIFE  IN  LITCHFIELD  COUNTY 

well  equipped  bathroom  are  common,  and  sometimes,  if 
power  lines  pass  the  farm,  electric  lighting  is  installed. 
The  rural  mail  system,  which  provides  for  daily  deliv- 
ery, has  made  general  the  taking  of  daily  papers,  while 
magazines  and  other  forms  of  wholesome  circulating 
literature  are  found  in  nearly  every  country  home.  The 
advent  of  good  roads,  accompanied  by  the  automobile, 
is  providing  means  for  freer  social  intercourse  between 
families  in  the  country  and  between  the  country  folk 
and  their  city  cousins. 

On  the  farm  proper  the  sulky  plow,  the  wheel  har- 
row, the  grain  seeder,  the  horse  corn-planter,  the  potato 
planter,  the  mowing  machine,  the  horse  rake,  the  hay 
loader,  the  reaper,  the  corn  harvester  and  the  potato 
digger  have  greatly  reduced  the  hand  labor  required  in 
performing  the  various  operations  of  fitting  the  land,  of 
planting,  of  cultivating  and  of  harvesting.  In  fact,  so 
general  is  the  use  of  machine  power  that  the  farmer  of 
to-day  needs  to  be  a  good  mechanic  to  handle  his  farm- 
ing operations  to  the  best  advantage. 

As  has  already  been  pointed  out,  the  chief  branch  of 
farming  throughout  the  county  to-day  is  dairying.  Con- 
necticut has  long  been  known  as  a  dairy  State.  Her 
many  thriving  towns  and  cities  provide  a  home  market 
for  milk,  butter  and  cheese,  while  on  account  of  her 
location,  midway  between  New  York  and  Boston,  her 
surplus  milk  quickly  reaches  these  large  centers.    Up  to 

[100 ;] 


THE   MODKRX   FARM 

about  1880  the  making  of  cheese  in  factories  and  the 
home  production  of  butter  and  cheese  were  the  chief 
branches  of  dairying.  Even  ten  or  fifteen  years  later, 
with  the  exception  of  farms  near  the  railroads,  cheese 
was  an  important  dairy  product  in  our  State  and 
county.  Cooperative  creameries  were  started  about 
1880,  and  these,  within  a  few  years,  almost  entirely 
supplanted  the  cheese  factories  and  the  home  manufac- 
ture of  cheese  and  butter.  From  1880  to  1895,  ^^' 
operative  creameries  increased  in  the  State  from  less 
than  half  a  dozen  to  over  sixty.  Since  about  1900, 
however,  there  has  been  a  steady  decline  in  butter-mak- 
ing, with  a  constant  increase  in  the  shipping  of  milk. 

Coincident  with  the  changes  in  the  leading  branches 
of  farming  practised  within  the  county  came  changes  in 
the  class  of  cattle  kept.  As  soon  as  the  growing  of  beef 
and  of  sheep, on  the  cheaper  but  more  fertile  lands  of  the 
West,  made  the  production  of  these  meats  of  doubtful 
profit  in  .New  F^ngland,  our  farmers  were  led  to  see  the 
advantages  of  the  purely  dairy  type  of  cattle.  A  com- 
bination of  the  beef  type  and  the  dairy  type  of  cattle 
might  have  been  valuable  up  to  the  days  of  cheap  West- 
ern beef,  but  not  after  that.  Prior  to  about  1870  the 
Shorthorn  and  the  Devon  breeds  of  cattle  held  a  promi- 
nent place  in  Litchfield  County,  but  with  the  lack  of 
profit  in  beef  and  with  cheaper  horse  labor,  these  breeils 
no  longer  filled  the  requirements  of  our  farmers. 


RURAL  LIFE  IN  LITCHFIELD  COUNTY 

Connecticut  early  became  the  American  home  of 
some  of  the  best  of  the  old-world  dairy  breeds.  While 
the  Jersey  was  introduced  into  the  State  as  early  as 
185 1,  it  was  not  until  between  1865  and  1870  that  this 
breed  and  her  sister  type,  the  Guernsey,  began  to  be  no- 
ticed in  the  dairy  annals  of  the  State,  particularly  in 
Hartford  County.  Noted  herds  of  Jerseys  were  estab- 
lished in  the  early  seventies  at  Echo  Farm  in  Litchfield 
and  by  the  Eldridges  of  Norfolk,  while  others  became 
more  or  less  interested  in  a  small  way.  Following  the 
introduction  of  creameries,  there  was  a  diffusion  of 
Jersey  blood  throughout  the  herds  supplying  these  fac- 
tories. This  was  due  to  the  fact  that  quality  rather 
than  quantity  of  milk  was  the  basis  of  profit  in  selling 
through  the  creamery. 

In  the  milk-shipping  sections,  however,  a  different 
condition  prevailed.  Milk  shipped  to  New  York  was, 
for  many  years,  ungraded,  as  far  as  richness  in  fat  was 
concerned.  This  naturally  led  to  the  keeping  of  such 
cattle  as  would  produce  quantity  of  milk  rather  than 
quality,  as  the  two  characteristics  are  rarely  found  in 
a  single  type  of  cattle.  Holsteins  had  for  many  years 
been  bred  for  high  milk  production  on  the  rich  low- 
lands of  Holland,  and  early  in  the  days  of  milk-shipping 
they  became  prominent  in  the  Hudson  and  the  Harlem 
valleys  and  soon  after  were  introduced  into  Litchfield 
County.     To-day  no   breed   is   more  popular   among 

[102] 


THE  MODFRX  FARM 

those  who  arc  shipping  milk  to  New  York  than  the 
"black  and  white"  cattle.  Ihe  Ayrshire  breed  is  one 
that,  in  the  cheese  days,  held  a  hi^h  place  in  the  estima- 
tion of  dairymen,  but  as  to  quantity  of  milk  alone  she 
cannot  compete  with  the  I  lolstein,  and  the  quality  of 
her  niilk  will  not  place  her  in  the  same  class  as  the 
Jerseys  and  the  Guernseys.  However,  with  an  increas- 
ing tendency  to  buy  milk  according  to  a  standard  of 
four  per  cent  fat,  the  Ayrshire  is  now  gaining  in  popu- 
larity. No  breed  furnishes  a  better  grade  of  milk  for 
infants,  and  to-day  certified  milk  farms  are  searching 
the  country  for  cows  of  this  breed. 

One  other  breed  of  cattle  that  has,  within  the  past 
twenty  years,  become  popular  in  the  county  is  the 
Guernsey.  This  is  sometimes  known  as  the  "rich  man's 
cow."  No  breed  has  become  more  popular  on  country 
estates  where  beauty  of  form  and  quality  of  product  are 
the  chief  requisites.  As  a  business  farmer's  cow,  where 
high  testing  milk  is  wanted,  there  is  little  difference 
between  the  Guernsey  and  the  Jersey.  The  rich  yellow 
milk  of  the  Guernsey,  however,  makes  her  a  special 
favorite  among  those  who  want  a  choice  family  prod- 
uct. Several  farms  in  the  county  have  choice  specimens 
of  this  breed,  and  one  farm  at  least  has  attained  some- 
what of  a  national  reputation  as  the  home  of  noted 
Guernseys. 

The  modern  dairy  barn  is  as  much  of  an  e\'olution  as 


RURAL  LIFE  IN  LITCHFIELD  COUNTY 

the  dairy  breeds.  In  the  early  days  of  the  dairy  indus- 
try it  was  supposed  that  it  must  be  almost  entirely  a 
summer  business — that  if  the  cow  produced  a  liberal 
flow  of  milk  from  April  to  December,  she  must  of  ne- 
cessity "rest  from  her  labors"  the  balance  of  the  year. 
Yet  we  know  that  modern  conditions  of  stabling  and  of 
feeding  have  changed  all  this,  so  that  now  milk  is  pro- 
duced as  readily  in  winter  as  in  summer.  This  has  been 
brought  about,  in  a  great  measure,  by  improved  meth- 
ods of  housing.  The  barn,  that  let  in  the  first  rays  of 
the  morning  sun  through  its  many  cracks,  and  that,  in 
the  same  way,  let  in  the  northern  blasts  and  the  drifting 
snows,  is  a  thing  of  the  past.  Closely  constructed  and 
yet  well  ventilated  barns  are  the  homes  of  our  modern 
breeds  of  livestock.  Water  flowing  into  inside  troughs 
has  been  generally  substituted  for  the  hole  in  the  ice  at 
a  near-by  pond  or  brook;  while  modern  facilities  for 
reducing  labor  are  a  part  of  the  equipment  of  every 
well  arranged  dairy  barn.  The  introduction  of  the  silo 
has  increased  the  profit  in  the  winter  production  of 
milk,  as  it  supplies  the  cheapest  form  of  succulent  feed 
for  use  in  the  winter  season.  While  the  cheap  labor 
available  on  some  of  the  European  dairy  farms  may 
make  the  growing  and  use  of  root  crops  profitable, 
under  our  labor  conditions  well  grown  and  well  pre- 
served silage  is  more  economical. 

The  statement  is  often  made  in  Litchfield  County,  as 
[;i04] 


THE  MODERN  FARM 

elsewhere,  that  there  is  no  profit  in  producing  market 
milk  at  present  wholesale  prices,  and  yet  the  fact  re- 
mains that  many  farmers  are  not  only  providing  a  good 
livelihood  for  their  families,  but  at  the  same  time  arc 
educating  their  children  and  paying  oHf  mortgages  that 
earlier  conditions  made  necessary',  or  that  came  as  a 
heritage.  There  is  no  question,  to-day,  but  that  dairy 
farming  provides  a  ready  market  for  a  large  amount 
of  directly  non-salable  farm  products  that  can  be  con- 
verted into  readily  salable  animal  products  and  thus  be 
made  to  return  a  good  profit.  P'rom  a  business  view- 
point, the  conditions  that  are  essential  in  establishing 
this  protit  are  a  converting  machine  — the  dairy  cow- 
well  adapted  to  the  work  expected  of  her,  and  a  well 
organized  system  of  farm  management  for  making  this 
converting  machine  do  its  work  efl'iciently. 

Those  farming  sections  of  Litchfield  County  that  lie 
within  easy  reach  of  good  markets,  generally  show  the 
highest  prosperity.  This  is  due  to  the  fact  that  a  va- 
riety of  farming  projects  can  be  undertaken,  so  that 
there  will  be  several  sources  of  revenue,  and.  further- 
more, to  the  fact  that  near-by  markets  provide  the 
smallest  cost  of  handling  between  producer  and  con- 
sumer. It  is  a  well  established  fact  that  in  our  large 
cities  about  two-thirds  of  the  cost  price,  to  the  consumer, 
of  food  products  used  is  represented  in  the  cost  of 
transportation  and  handling,  and  in  the  profits  of  those 


RURAL  LIFE  L\  LITCHFIELD  COUNTY 

doing  this  work,  thus  leaving  approximately  one-third 
of  what  the  consumer  pays  as  the  producer's  portion. 
Where  a  large  part  of  the  cost  of  transportation  and 
handling  can  be  eliminated,  as  is  the  case  with  near-by 
markets,  the  producer's  share  of  the  retail  price  is 
greatly  increased.  In  some  cases,  too,  the  farmer  may 
become  the  retailer  and  so  reap  all  of  the  outlay  for  the 
farm  products  that  the  consumer  buys. 

Our  home  markets  are  a  great  source  of  revenue  in 
the  sale  of  cash  crops  that  can  be  grown  to  supplement 
the  income  of  the  dairy.  Narrow  specialization  is  sel- 
dom the  most  profitable  type  of  farming,  because  under 
such  a  system  the  labor  of  the  farm  is  not  well  utilized. 
Then  again,  seasonal  conditions  may  seriously  reduce 
the  profits  from  one  crop  or  product  and  not  from  an- 
other. Dairy  farming  will  allow  for  the  growing  of 
such  supplementary  market  crops  as  garden  truck,  pota- 
toes, cabbage,  fruit,  and  even  hay.  The  nearness  to 
market,  the  demands  of  the  market  and  the  type  of  soil 
will  indicate  which  of  these  is  likely  to  prove  most 
profitable  on  a  particular  farm.  On  the  hill  lands,  at 
considerable  distance  from  the  markets,  many  farmers 
to-day  are  growing,  at  good  profit,  apples  of  the  finest 
quality,  while  hay  always  finds  a  ready  sale,  either  loose 
or  baled,  in  our  manufacturing  towns  and  cities.  Pota- 
toes, cabbage  and  turnips  are  crops  that  can  be  handled 
at   a    considerable   distance    from   markets,    and   such 


nil:  .\K)I)j:kn  i  arm 

maniifactiirinjj:  centers  as  Winsted,  Torrin^ton,  Water- 
biiry  arul  Danbury  afford  a  ready  market  for  these 
products.  Poultry  products,  too,  arc  in  dcniaml  far 
beyond  the  local  supply,  and  the  cheap,  rough  lands  of 
the  county  are  as  well  suited  to  the  keeping  of  poultry 
as  are  the  highest  priced  lands  of  the  valleys.  Our 
working  classes  to-day,  In  city  and  town,  are  receiving 
such  good  wages  that  they  are  demanding  the  best 
grade  of  fruits  and  vegetables,  put  up  In  an  attractive 
form.  Thriving  manufacturing  towns  like  Winsted, 
Torrlngton,  Waterbury  and  Danbury  are  being  sup- 
plied from  near-by  farms  with  small  fruits  and  vege- 
tables. On  account  of  their  freshness  and  high  quality 
these  products  command  the  highest  prices,  and  the 
producers  are  reaping  the  rewards  of  their  skill. 

In  general,  to-day,  those  farmers  who  are  guided  by 
the  demands  of  the  markets  for  a  high  class  of  food 
products,  and  who  are  striving  to  meet  these  demands 
in  accordance  with  the  nature  of  their  soils  and  their 
location,  are  prospering  in  the  business  of  farming  in 
Litchfield  County,  as  elsewhere  In  the  East. 


c^o?: 


CHAPTER  IX 


COUNTRY  LIFE,  OLD  AND  NEW 

HE  fact  that  there  has  been  a  decline  in 
the  population  of  most  of  the  strictly  rural 
towns  of  New  England  has  led  many  to 
assume  that  there  has  been  general  deca- 
dence in  agriculture.  That  a  decline  has 
taken  place  in  towns  far  from  the  centers  of  trade  is 
true,  but  this  does  not  mean  that  agriculture  as  a  whole 
is  on  the  decline.  In  fact,  agriculture  is  more  pros- 
perous than  ever  in  sections  near  good  markets.  In 
order  to  understand  the  decline  that  did  take  place,  half 
a  century  or  more  ago,  in  many  of  the  rural  towns  of 
this  county,  we  need  to  consider  the  general  evolution  in 
industrial  life  that  was  going  on  everywhere  in  our 
country.  Litchfield  County  passed  through  the  same 
industrial  evolution  between  1840  and  1870  that  mani- 

CioS] 


COUNTRY  LIFE,  OLD  AND  NHW 

fested  itsch  generally  in  the  Last.  The  concentrating 
into  large  central  plants  of  the  small  manufacturing  in- 
dustries that  had  grown  up  throughout  the  rural  towns 
went  on  rapidly  during  these  years.  This  soon  devel- 
oped strong  industrial  centers  along  the  waterways, 
where  good  power  was  available.  Lhe  railroads  that 
were  being  built  through  the  river  valleys  favored  this 
concentration  by  affording  ready  means  of  transporta- 
tion. The  hat  business,  that  had  been  a  household  trade, 
was  centered  in  Danbury.  The  tanneries  that  were 
general  over  the  county,  and  the  scythe  factories  of 
Salisbury,  were  centered  in  Winsted.  Small  silk  and 
wool  industries,  that  were  at  one  time  found  in  nearly 
every  town,  went  to  Winsted  and  Waterbury.  Ihc 
small  industries  that  formerly  helped  to  make  the  rural 
towns  prosperous,  thus  went  to  build  up  big  central 
plants.  Lhese  industrial  changes  were  the  means  of 
draining  away  much  of  the  life  and  wealth  of  the  coun- 
try towns.  During  this  same  period,  too,  the  vast, 
cheap,  fertile  areas  of  the  great  Central  West  were 
opened  for  settlement.  A  rocky  hill  farm  in  Connecti- 
cut could  be  sold  for  a  few  dollars  an  acre  and  the  pro- 
ceeds would  establish  the  owner  on  a  new,  free  farm  of 
1 60  acres  in  Illinois  or  Iowa,  every  foot  of  which  was 
tillable  land.  More  often,  the  sons  were  attracted  by 
the  opportunities  presenteil  in  these  new  fields,  and 
when  the  old  folks  passed  on  no  one  was  left  to  care  for 

[[109] 


RURAL  LIFE  IN  LITCHFIELD  COUNTY 

the  ancestral  acres.  This  resulted  in  the  return  of 
many  acres  to  a  condition  of  forest  growth,  which  al- 
ways follows  a  period  of  cessation  in  active  farming. 

Thus  the  pressure  of  new  and  uncontrollable  condi- 
tions forced  many  of  the  inhabitants  of  our  rural  towns 
to  seek  new  fields  of  enterprise.  The  soil  had  not  lost 
all  its  fertility,  but  competition  from  newer,  more  fertile 
and  more  workable  fields,  together  with  the  new  form 
of  industrial  life  represented  in  the  large  towns  and 
cities,  had  so  changed  the  opportunities  for  reasonable 
returns  from  labor  that  the  migration  of  a  considerable 
portion  of  the  inhabitants  became  an  economic  neces- 
sity. The  causes,  therefore,  of  whatever  decline  was 
seen  in  our  rural  towns  must  be  looked  for  in  the  great 
industrial  changes  that  were  going  on  in  our  country  as 
a  whole,  and  in  the  development  of  new  fields  of  com- 
petitive agriculture,  rather  than  in  the  decline  of  our 
agriculture  or  the  decadence  of  our  country  life. 

That  the  churches  and  schools  should  feel  the  force 
of  this  general  decline  was  to  be  expected,  but  that  it 
should  be  ascribed  to  a  decadence  in  religious  life  would 
be  as  unsound  as  to  say  that  the  world  has  lost  its  sense 
of  religious  responsibility  because  the  great  powers  of 
Europe  are  now  at  war.  The  best  life  of  many  of  the 
rural  towns  was  drained  away,  and  has,  in  a  measure, 
been  replaced  by  those  who  have  not  the  same  sense  of 
responsibility  toward  the  church,  the  school  and  the 


COUMRV   LIFE,  OLD  AM)  Ni:\V 

town  as  h;ul  their  predecessors.  Lhe  church  and  the 
school  must  readjust  themselves  to  the  new  conditions. 
Agriculture  readjusts  itself  to  new  economic  conditions 
more  quickly  than  do  other  rural  forces.  Lhe  church 
and  the  schools  must  follow  its  example  and  so  plan 
their  work  as  to  Ht  the  new  environment.  Lhe  social 
life  of  our  rural  towns  is  being  developed  through  other 
agencies  than  the  church.  Lhe  mistake  that  the  church 
has  commonly  made  is  in  holding  herself  aloof  from 
the  life  of  the  community,  instead  of  being  a  part  of  it. 
In  those  communities  where  the  church  is  the  center  of 
the  social  and  the  literary  life  of  the  farm  folk,  as  is 
conspicuously  the  case  in  a  few  rural  towns  of  this 
county,  the  hold  on  the  religious  life  of  the  people  con- 
tinues strong.  Lhe  ministry  must  be  in  sympathy  with 
farm  life  and  the  natural  advantages  of  life  in  the  open 
country  in  order  to  have  the  church  retain  its  hold  on 
the  farm  people.  A  special  class  of  pastors,  who  know 
from  experience  the  real  problems  of  the  farm,  will  be 
the  logical  outgrowth  of  any  effective  movement  for  a 
better  religious  life  in  our  country  towns. 

Organization  is  the  key-note  of  modern  farm  life. 
In  fact,  farm  life  as  a  business  and  a  social  force  is  now 
being  organized  as  never  before.  There  was  a  time 
when  the  life  of  the  farmer  was  individualistic  in  the 
extreme,  but  that  time  has  passed.  Through  the  va- 
rious   organizations,    whose    function    is    to    foster    a 


RURAL  LIFE  IN  LITCHFIELD  COUiNTY 

deeper  insight  into  the  advantages  of  special  branches 
of  farming,  the  farmer  is  gradually  seeing  the  benefits 
of  organized  effort.  Thus  the  Grange,  the  Pomologi- 
cal  Society,  the  Dairymen's  Association,  the  Poultry 
Association,  and  many  other  organizations  are  devel- 
oping a  tendency,  among  those  who  are  interested  in 
certain  specialties,  to  work  together,  as  well  as  to  learn 
from  each  other's  experiences. 

The  farm  families  of  Litchfield  County  have  been 
especially  fortunate  in  the  opportunities  afforded  for 
education.  While  the  public  schools,  probably,  have 
averaged  no  better  than  in  other  rural  sections  of  Con- 
necticut, secondary  schools  under  private  management 
have  been  more  general.  In  the  early  days  the  rural 
academy  was  an  educational  center  in  nearly  every  town, 
and  later  such  schools  as  the  Gunnery,  Robbins,  Taft, 
Kent  and  Hotchkiss  have  offered  educational  advan- 
tages within  the  financial  reach  of  the  farmer's  family. 
The  movement  to  consolidate  our  public  schools  has 
been  slow,  due  often  to  long  distances  and  bad  roads 
for  transporting  the  children;  but  the  general  good 
roads  movement  is  paving  the  way  for  this.  The  work 
of  our  schools,  too,  is  slowly  but  surely  shaping  itself  to 
conform  to  the  life  of  the  rural  towns.  What  such 
towns  as  Salisbury  and  Washington  and  Winsted  are 
doing  to  introduce  nature  study,  practical  mechanics 
and  the  household  arts  into  their  work,  is  but  an  index 

C"23 


COUNTRY  LIFE,  OLD  AM)  M  W 

of  a  new  type  of  rural  school  work  that  will  tend  to 
fit  the  masses  for  real  country  life  rather  than  be  a  step 
toward  a  classical  education,  to  which  only  the  few  will 
ever  attain. 

There  are  two  types  ot  country  homes,  more  or  less 
common  throughout  the  county.  One  is  represented  by 
country  estates  owned  by  city  men  of  wealth,  who  use 
the  country  mainly  as  a  playground,  and  whose  interest 
in  country  life  and  country  affairs  is  generally  tempo- 
rary. The  other  is  represented  by  those  farms  that 
have  come  down  in  the  family  line  through  many  gener- 
ations and  whose  owners  are  trying  to  perpetuate  a 
form  of  country  life  that  seeks  to  gain  a  comfortable 
living  from  the  land,  and  at  the  same  time  to  rear  and 
educate  well  a  tamily  under  wholesome  rural  conditions. 

The  country  estates,  owned  and  used  as  summer 
homes  by  business  men  from  the  cities,  may  be  divided 
into  two  classes:  those  occupying  large  areas  whose 
owners  are  farming  on  an  extensive  scale,  and  those 
occupying  limited  areas  whose  owners  are  interested 
mainly  in  having  a  beautiful  and  restful  summer  home, 
with  land  enough  to  provide  a  playground  and  choice 
farm  products  sufficient  to  meet  the  needs  of  the  family. 

Men  of  wealth  in  this  country  are  developing  a  ten- 
dency toward  the  establishment  of  a  landed  aristocracy, 
but  at  the  same  time  are  not  adopting  the  business  pol- 
icy in  land  management  that  our  I'!nglish  cousins  arc 


RURAL  LIFE  IN  LITCHFIELD  COUNTY 

using.  Most  of  the  large  farms  owned  by  city  men  of 
wealth  are  not  managed  on  a  strictly  business  basis. 
The  equipment  and  the  methods  employed  are  not  in 
keeping  with  the  farm  receipts.  The  wealthy  manu- 
facturer, for  example,  does  not  use  the  same  kind  of 
business  methods  on  his  farm  that  he  does  in  his  shops. 
He  does  not  expect  the  same  degree  of  efficiency  in  his 
farm  help  as  he  does  in  his  factory  help.  He  often 
looks  on  the  farm  as  a  plaything,  as  a  place  to  spend 
money,  and  not  to  make  it.  We  would  not  imply  that 
there  is  no  place  in  business  farming  for  the  man  of 
wealth.  He  might  well  show  that  there  is  good  profit 
on  a  considerable  investment  of  capital  in  farming  oper- 
ations, but  he  must  adopt  the  same  rigid  business  meth- 
ods that  other  lines  of  business  follow.  In  fact,  there 
are  now  several  large  farms  In  the  county  that  are 
being  managed  on  a  sound  business  basis  and  are 
showing  good  profit  from  the  investment  of  consider- 
able capital. 

The  other  class  of  country  homes,  owned  by  men 
whose  business  is  mainly  in  the  city,  is  represented  by 
those  estates  that  control  only  limited  areas  and  are 
located  in  spots  chosen  for  their  natural  beauty  and 
developed  with  a  view  to  making  a  pleasant,  restful 
country  home  with  land  enough  to  afford  the  family  all 
of  the  choice  farm  products  that  can  readily  be  supplied. 
Such  places  can  make  use  of  nature's  abundance  to  de- 


COUNTRY  LIFE,  OLD  AND  NKW 

velop  home  surroundings  of  the  most  charming  kind. 
The  true  lover  of  nature  may  surround  his  home  with 
the  shrubs  and  plants,  rarer  and  choicer  than  any  com- 
mercial florist  can  supply,  taken  from  the  wild,  and 
often  from  his  own  lands.  Norfolk  affords  several  such 
homes  with  houses  of  simple  lines,  banked  with  laurel 
and  native  rhododendron  and  with  grounds  dotted  here 
and  there  with  mountain  ash,  birch  and  other  native 
trees,  the  whole  having  a  background  of  native  conifers. 
Such  homes,  nestled  among  the  hills,  provide  a  quiet 
and  restful  retreat  not  found  on  the  broad,  fertile 
acres  of  the  flat  country. 

In  general  the  owners  of  the  second  type  of  country 
homes  are  descendants  of  the  original  settlers.  They 
feel  an  ancestral  pride  in  seeing  the  farm  improve,  with 
the  idea  that  it  will  remain  in  the  family  for  generations 
to  come.  In  building,  they  build  not  alone  for  the  im- 
mediate present  but  also  for  future  generations.  If 
they  set  out  an  orchard  they  do  not  always  expect  to 
reap  the  full  rewards  of  the  fruits  thereof  themselves, 
but  live  in  the  hope  that  future  generations  will  enjoy 
the  fruits  of  their  labors.  If  they  make  permanent  and 
lasting  improvements  on  a  piece  of  land,  they  do  it  with 
the  feeling  that  the  next  generation  will  profit  from 
their  labors  fully  as  much  as  the  one  who  does  the  work. 
They  arc  not  like  the  famous  politician  who,  when  told 
that  he  ought  to  have  consideration  for  the  rights  of 

[•lO 


RURAL  LIFE  IN  LITCHFIELD  COUNTY 

posterity,  remarked,  "What  has  posterity  ever  done  for 
me  ?  Let  posterity  look  out  for  its  own  rights !"  Many, 
however,  are  like  the  old  farmer  whose  farm  had  a 
beautiful  setting  on  the  shores  of  a  sparkling  lake.  He 
was  interviewed  one  day  by  a  millionaire  who  was  flying 
through  in  his  limousine.  Pleased  with  the  beauty  of 
the  place,  the  millionaire  stopped  and  asked  the  farmer 
to  set  a  price  on  his  farm.  He  was  promptly  told  that 
the  farm  was  not  for  sale.  Then,  with  an  impatient 
gesture,  the  millionaire  remarked,  "My  friend,  con- 
sider a  minute.  A  few  thousand  dollars  one  way  or  the 
other  makes  no  difference  to  me;  set  your  price."  But 
the  farmer  coolly  replied,  "The  farm  is  not  for  sale, 
sir !"  With  a  feeling  of  contempt  the  lordly  millionaire 
tried  once  more.  "But  you  would  not  refuse  to  ex- 
change shining  gold  for  these  rough  acres  and  these 
humble  dwellings?"  "My  friend,"  said  the  farmer, 
pointing  to  the  weatherbeaten  house,  "I  was  born  in 
that  southwest  room  from  which  you  can  look  down 
over  that  beautiful  lake,  and  there  I  expect  to  die. 
Other  generations  will  own  this  property  when  I  am 
gone.  You  will  have  to  look  elsewhere  for  your  farm." 
And  the  millionaire  sped  on  in  disgust. 

The  owners  of  these  ancestral  farms  are  striving  not 
only  to  perpetuate  their  homes  in  the  family  but  to  keep 
up  the  standard  of  the  country  school  and  the  country 
church.    They  realize  that  these  institutions  are  assets 

:"6: 


COUNIKV  LIFE,  OLD  AM)  \L\V 

in  country  lite  that  not  t)nly  inHuencc  the  moral  tone  of 
the  community  but  also  affect  land  values.  They  do  not 
hesitate,  when  the  time  comes,  to  spend  a  few  hundred 
dollars  on  the  higher  education  that  will  help  their  chil- 
dren the  better  to  enjoy  life  in  the  country  and  equip 
them  better  to  cope  with  the  complex  farm  problems 
that  an  advanced  type  of  civilization  always  brings. 

History  shows  that  land  ownership  by  the  many 
tends  to  develop  a  more  general  interest  in  national  life 
and  public  affairs  than  does  the  concentration  of  land 
ownership  in  the  hands  of  the  few.  Lhis  fact  has  been 
manifested  in  our  own  country  in  the  general  response 
from  our  farm  homes  for  recruits  to  defend  our  na- 
tional life  in  time  of  war.  The  farmer  is  keen  to  grasp 
the  fact  that  great  moral  and  economic  issues  in  public 
life  influence  his  business  as  quickly  as  any  business  in 
the  country.  The  fact,  too,  that  farming  is  an  industry 
that  requires  skill  and  intellectual  acumen  along  many 
lines  tends  to  broaden  the  farmer,  while  the  division  of 
labor  required  of  the  workman  in  many  other  industries 
tends  to  narrowness.  No  class  of  men  to-day  is  more  in- 
dependent in  thought  and  action,  on  great  public  ques- 
tions, than  farmers  of  ailvanced  type.  This  has  shown 
itself  more  strikingly  in  political  life  in  the  past  decade 
or  two  than  ever  before.  Local,  State  and  national  issues 
are  being  studied  from  the  broad  viewpoint  ot  public 
good   rather  than   from   the   narrow  one   of  partisan 


RURAL  LIFE  IN  LITCHFIELD  COUxNTY 

choice.  The  farmers  have  become  a  reading  people, 
and  the  extension  of  the  parcel  post,  good  roads,  village 
and  circulating  libraries  is  making  this  condition  more 
and  more  possible.  The  general  introduction  of  metro- 
politan daily  newspapers  into  country  homes  has  done 
more  to  broaden  the  life  of  the  farmer  and  to  put  him 
in  touch  with  great  world  questions  than  any  other  thing 
that  has  entered  into  his  life. 


QiiS] 


CHAPTER  X 


(OUN  TRY  COMMLNH  V  PROCiRKSS 


HILE  it  is  generally  admitted  that  life  in 
the  open  country  tends  to  develop  a  phys- 
ically and  morally  strong  people,  yet  the 
disadvantages  of  life  remote  from  the 
large  centers  must  not  be  overlooked. 
WhatcNcr  can  be  done  to  make  country  life  broader 
and  better  by  making  the  social  and  educational  advan- 
tages enjoyed  by  the  city  more  available  to  the  country, 
will  tend  to  a  higher  civilization.  We  need  a  country 
life  developed  out  of  its  own  resources  rather  than  one 
having  the  unnatural  life  of  the  cities  engrafted  upon  it. 
Many  country  people  are  making  the  mistake  to-day  of 
tr)'ing  to  engraft  city  customs  upon  the  life  of  the  coun- 
try, while  some  country  people  are  assuming  the  role  of 
the  city  "dude,"  instead  of  developing  a  healthy  com- 


RURAL  LIFE  IN  LITCHFIELD  COUNTY 

munity  life  and  a  rugged  and  normal  individual  life  that 
should  be  the  outgrowth  of  their  environment. 

There  is  a  growing  tendency,  too,  among  city  people 
of  liberal  means  and  good  intentions  to  want  to  do  some- 
thing for  the  betterment  of  life  in  the  country.  Such  en- 
deavor, when  rightly  directed,  is  to  be  commended.  It 
cannot  be  done,  however,  by  transferring  the  city  to 
the  country.  Whatever  can  be  done  to  make  the  coun- 
try people  see  and  enjoy  the  advantages  of  the  country, 
is  to  be  commended.  The  one  thing  that  country  people 
lack  is  a  full  realization  of  what  they  have  to  enjoy. 
Country  children  especially  need  to  be  taught  how  to 
enjoy  life  in  the  country  and  how  to  see  and  appreciate 
Nature  in  her  many  and  varied  phases.  The  boys'  and 
girls'  club  contests  in  the  growing  of  poultry,  vege- 
tables, fruits  and  flowers  will  tend  to  develop  a  healthy 
rivalry  that  cannot  fail  to  arouse  interest  in  growing 
things.  The  Boy  Scouts  and  the  Camp  Fire  Girls  are 
forms  of  wholesome  endeavor  and  recreation  that  are 
tending  to  arouse  a  spirit  of  self-reliance  and  an  inter- 
est in  one's  community,  as  well  as  to  develop  a  vigorous 
physical  life.  The  country  fair,  in  its  rural  simplicity, 
such  as  Norfolk  has  so  well  illustrated,  is  to  be  com- 
mended and  has  wholesome  recreational  and  educa- 
tional advantages  well  worth  while.  But  when  the 
cheap  side-show  and  the  "midway"  are  engrafted  on  the 
country   fair,    it    is   likely   to    be    perverted    from    Its 

[120] 


COUNTRY  COMMUNITY  PROGRESS 

real  function  and  become  an  unwholesome,  if  not  a  dan- 
gerous, institution. 

This  county  is  rich  In  historical  lore  that  should  be 
perpetuated  in  the  lives  of  our  people.  The  drama  and 
the  historical  pageant,  built  on  these  historic  events, 
would  do  more  for  the  social  and  educational  uplift  of 
our  towns  than  all  the  "movies"  ever  projectetl.  An 
historical  room  in  each  town  for  preserving,  and  for 
exhibiting  to  the  rising  generation,  samples  of  the 
household  arts  and  treasures  of  the  past,  together 
with  the  crude  and  cumbersome  farming  tools  with 
which  our  fathers  labored,  would  do  much  to  develop 
local  pride  and  interest  in  local  history. 

The  circulating  library,  rightly  directed  from  good 
library  centers,  has  possibilities  for  good  in  our  rural 
homes,  not  fully  realized.  One  lack  in  many  rural 
homes  is  good  literature  for  the  children.  Mvery 
school-house  might  well  be  made  a  community  center 
for  the  distribution  of  wholesome  books  for  voung  peo- 
ple. If  rightly  chosen,  these  books  could  be  utilized  by 
the  teacher  to  arouse  an  interest  in  nature  and  in  coun- 
try life  that  the  prevailing  fiction  often  tends  to  deaden. 

The  visiting  nurse  has  come  into  a  few  of  our  rural 
towns  as  a  result  of  the  generous  interest  in  community 
welfare  manifested  by  those  who  have  the  means  and 
the  inclination  to  help  their  fellow-citizens  to  help  them- 
selves.    This   spirit  of  prompting  self-help,   through 


RURAL  LIFE  IN  LITCHFIELD  COUNTY 

sympathetic  encouragement  and  through  suggestions 
for  utiHzing  agencies  directly  at  hand,  is  the  modern 
form  of  benevolence  that  is  to-day  very  wisely  replacing 
the  old  form  of  giving.  What  is  given  outright  is  rarely 
appreciated  as  much  as  the  opportunity  to  do  for  one's 
self,  which  can  be  made  use  of  without  lessening  the 
self-respect  of  the  recipient.  If  country  people  can  only 
be  led  to  appreciate  the  value  of  fresh  air,  pure  water, 
simple,  wholesome  food  and  effective  sewage  disposal, 
through  the  suggestive  teachings  of  the  district  nurse, 
it  will  do  more  for  country  welfare  than  all  the  direct 
gifts  that  charity  can  offer  to  the  country. 

The  public  school  is  an  institution  that  is  fundamental 
in  the  life  of  any  free  people.  A  public  school  system 
that  is  free  to  all,  at  the  expense  of  every  one  in  the 
community,  lies  at  the  foundation  of  our  educational 
system.  While  the  public  school  is  a  community  insti- 
tution, unfortunately  it  often  does  not  lie  within  the 
power  of  the  community  to  shape  the  policy  of  the 
school.  Our  educational  system  is  the  outgrowth  of  an 
age  when  only  the  children  of  the  wealthy  were  sup- 
posed to  profit  by  its  advantages.  It  is  based  on  the 
principle  of  culture,  and  this  was  at  first  its  real  function. 
To-day,  instead  of  the  few  profiting  by  the  schools,  they 
are  used  by  the  many.  Our  rural  schools  must  shape 
their  work  to  fit  the  needs  of  the  rural  people.  When 
we  reflect  that  less  than  ten  per  cent  of  those  who  pass 

1122-2 


COUNTRY  COMMUNITY  PROGRESS 

the  grades  ever  enter  the  high  school,  or  have  any  fur- 
ther school  privileges,  we  can  begin  to  appreciate  the 
importance  of  a  school  system  that  will  shape  itself  to 
the  needs  of  the  masses. 

Interest  in  country  life  and  country  affairs  can  be 
developed   best   during   the    formative   period   of   the 
child's  life,  or  between  six  and  fifteen  years  of  age. 
Why  should  there  not  be  an  endeavor  made  at  this  age 
to  develop  interest  in  the  type  of  life  and  environment 
that  the  larger  number  of  country  children  are  sure  to 
experience  through  life?     Fortunately,  we  are  begin- 
ning to  see  our  responsibilities  and  duties  in  this  direc- 
tion and  are  so  modifying  our  plan  of  instruction  in 
rural  schools  as  to  make  it  fit  the  life  of  the  people. 
Problems  in  arithmetic  are  now  drawn  more  from  farm 
life  and  less  from  commercial  city  life.    More  problems 
are  being  drawn  from  the  daily  business  of  the  farm 
and  fewer  from  the  banking  house,  based  on  stocks  ami 
bonds   that   the   child   will   probably  never  deal   with. 
More  historical  incidents  are  drawn  from  local  life  and 
the  work  of  our  ancestors  and  less  from  the  succession  of 
kings.     More  interest  is  being  developed  in  what  grows 
under  our  feet,  and  less  in  the  products  of  India  or 
Australia.     We  rejoice  to  see  the  community  endeavor 
to  interest  the  children  of  our  public  schools  in  garden 
and  shop  work,  in  fruits  and  in  flowers,  such  as  has  been 
developed  in  Salisbun*-  and  Washington.    One  value  of 


RURAL  LIFE  IN  LITCHFIELD  COUNTY 

all  such  endeavor  is  that  it  helps  the  child  to  find  his 
bent  in  life;  and  when  interest  in  some  one  subject  is 
aroused,  the  child  begins  to  become  more  interested  in 
all  other  school  subjects. 

There  is  probably  no  one  agency  that  has  done  more 
for  rural  betterment  in  this  county,  as  well  as  in  the 
State  as  a  whole,  than  the  Grange  or  Patrons  of  Hus- 
bandry. While  this  organization  is  nearly  fifty  years 
old,  its  influence  was  not  widely  felt  in  this  State  until 
about  thirty  years  ago.  The  Grange  was  at  first  urged 
for  its  financial  advantages  in  cooperative  buying  and 
selling,  but  it  was  soon  seen  that  it  would  never  be  a 
marked  success  in  this  line.  Later,  its  educational  and 
social  features  were  urged  upon  the  attention  of  farm- 
ers. As  a  means  of  getting  the  rural  people  together  in 
a  social  way,  it  has  been  well  worth  the  efforts  of  its 
most  loyal  supporters.  The  fact  that  it  has  brought 
both  sexes  into  its  work  has  tended  to  strengthen  family 
ties.  It  brings  the  farm  families  together  in  one  big 
community  family.  In  its  educational  work  it  has  made 
possible  the  consideration  of  questions  relating  to  the 
home  as  well  as  to  the  farm.  It  has  afforded  opportu- 
nities, to  a  greater  degree  than  any  other  agency,  for 
the  development  of  men  and  women  from  our  farms 
who  have  become  useful  in  public  life. 

We  are  just  entering  a  period  of  extension  work  in 
agriculture  and  home  economics  that  bids  fair  to  do 


COUMKV  COMMIMIV   I'ROCiRKSS 

more  for  country  people  than  anything  that  has  come 
into  play  heretofore.  The  Smith-Lever  Act,  recently 
passed  by  Congress,  makes  available  a  fund  that  is  to 
increase  vear  by  year,  based  on  the  proportion  of  the 
rural  population  to  the  total  population.  Ihis  fund  is 
to  be  used  by  the  State  college  of  agriculture  in  each 
State,  in  giving  instruction  away  from  the  college,  and 
is  designed  to  benefit  those  who  are  not  in  position  to 
take  a  course  at  the  college.  It  is  based,  however,  on 
the  cooperative  idea;  for  example,  no  State  can  profit 
by  the  fund,  available  year  by  year,  unless  it  matches  it 
by  a  similar  appropriation  to  be  used  for  the  same  pur- 
poses. 

The  Farm  Bureau  work,  now  organized  in  nearly  all 
the  States,  while  it  antedates  the  Smith-Lever  Act,  is 
now  operated  through  the  fund  provided  by  that  act. 
This  movement  carries  the  cooperative  idea  one  step 
further  because  it  requires  the  people  of  each  county 
that  benefits  by  its  privileges  to  form  a  part  of  the  co- 
operative plan.  7  he  plan  is  to  unite  the  Federal  gov- 
ernment, the  State  and  the  county  in  a  joint  program 
for  the  improvement  of  rural  conditions.  The  move- 
ment contemplates  the  development  in  each  county  of  an 
organization  to  be  known  as  "  Ihc  larm  Bureau  Asso- 
ciation," whose  duty  it  is  to  foster  the  work  of  the  Farm 
Bureau  by  assisting  the  local  manager  to  deal  with  the 
rural  problems  of  the  county.      I  he  local  manager  or 


RURAL  LIFE  IN  LITCHFIELD  COUNTY 

county  agent  can  do  little  as  an  individual,  on  account 
of  the  magnitude  of  the  work  before  him.  With  the 
support  and  cooperation  of  a  local  organization,  how- 
ever, he  will  become  acquainted  with  the  needs  of  the 
people  in  different  sections  of  the  county  and  can  deal 
with  groups  rather  than  with  individuals. 

One  important  function  of  the  county  agent  is  to  act 
as  a  clearing  house  between  the  people  of  the  county  and 
the  other  cooperating  agencies.  He  is  in  position  to 
make  available  expert  knowledge  from  the  Federal 
Department  of  Agriculture,  the  State  Department  of 
Agriculture,  the  State  Library  and  the  State  College.  It 
is  a  part  of  the  general  plan  to  make  this  work  as  avail- 
able to  the  home  as  it  is  to  the  farm  proper.  Ultimately 
this  will  be  accomplished  by  placing  a  woman  agent  in 
each  county,  who  will  assist  in  solving  problems  of  the 
farm  home.  Community  cooperation  will  make  this 
work  available  by  organizing  a  small  local  club  to  meet 
at  the  homes  of  its  members,  or  at  the  district  school- 
house,  or  some  other  public  building.  There  is  every 
reason  why  the  school  buildings,  which  are  built  by 
public  funds,  should  become  community  centers  for  the 
benefit  of  all  of  the  people  in  a  community.  In  this  way, 
the  schools  can  be  more  closely  linked  with  the  life  of 
the  community,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  a  greater  inter- 
est in  the  work  of  the  schools  will  be  developed  among 
the  people. 

[126] 


COUNTRY  CoMMINHV   1'R(  )(.ki:SS 

There  is  one  line  of  coopcratit)n  in  which  the  country 
and  the  city  might  get  together  more  fully  than  has  thus 
far  been  done.  The  country  should  be  a  big  play- 
ground for  the  city.  This,  however,  should  be  brought 
about  without  having  the  city  people  feel  that  they  have 
the  freedom  of  fields,  orchards  and  groves  without  re- 
gard to  the  rights  of  the  owners.  Public  parks,  public 
lakes  and  public  forest  areas  will  make  this  possible 
without  trespassing  on  private  rights.  With  the  sea- 
shore borders  now  mainly  taken  up  by  private  owners, 
the  general  public  must  look  to  the  lake  and  hill  country 
for  a  place  of  recreation.  It  is  as  much  a  function  of 
public  welfare  to  pr()\  idc  healthy  recreation  for  our 
people  as  it  is  to  provide  sanitary  conditions.  I'hose 
who  are  deprived  of  the  privileges  of  play  do  not  know 
how  to  work.  Our  larger  lake  areas,  with  a  strip  of 
shore,  should  be  brought  under  the  control  of  the  State 
and  be  thrown  open  for  public  camps,  under  proper  reg- 
ulations, just  as  are  the  State  forest  reserves  of  the 
Adirondacks.  These  beauty  spots  could  be  developed 
into  healthful  resorts,  at  small  expense,  and  be  made 
available  for  those  who  cannot  rent  cottages  or  af- 
ford to  go  to  the  summer  hotels. 

Litchfield  County  has  available  an  area  of  non-agri- 
cultural laml  that  should  be  developed  as  a  vast  public 
playground  and  forest  reserve.  In  the  northwest  cor- 
ner of  the  county,  what  is  known  as  .Mount  Riga  com- 


RURAL  LIFE  IN  LITCHFIELD  COUNTY 

prises  an  area,  some  ten  miles  long  and  six  miles  wide, 
that  is  admirably  adapted  for  park  and  forest  pur- 
poses. This  area  includes  some  of  the  wildest  swamps, 
the  most  picturesque  ravines  and  the  most  beautiful 
lakes  to  be  found  in  New  England. 

During  the  period  of  high  prices  for  pig  iron,  be- 
tween 1870  and  1880,  most  of  this  area  was  "coaled 
off,"  the  wood  being  burned  for  making  charcoal.  Since 
that  time  a  good  growth  of  timber  has  resulted,  but  sev- 
eral large  areas  have  been  devastated  by  forest  fires. 
This  whole  area  might,  under  proper  State  manage- 
ment, be  made  a  source  of  public  wealth,  as  well  as  a 
public  playground.  Under  proper  forest  management, 
with  lookout  posts  and  fire  paths,  it  would  be  possible 
to  check  the  damage  by  fires  and  keep  the  forest  growth 
in  steady  progress.  By  proper  thinning,  many  sections 
could  be  made  to  pay  the  cost  of  the  thinning  by  the  sale 
of  wood  removed,  and  the  portions  left  would  improve 
rapidly  under  the  better  opportunities  for  sunlight  and 
soil  fertility.  Certain  sections  already  thinned  by  the 
owner  are  showing  the  possibility  of  a  more  rapid 
growth,  in  contrast  with  other  areas  not  thinned. 

This  area  is  not  only  available  for  affording  a  good 
lesson  in  forestry,  but  also  for  showing  the  possibility 
of  game  and  fish  control  under  State  supervision.  No 
area  is  better  situated  for  breeding  both  fish  and  game 
on  a  large  scale,  as  it  affords  naturally  wild,   forest 


COUNTRY  COMMUNITY  PROGRESS 

seclusion,  and  several  lakes  and  brooks  where  a  variety 
of  fish  can  be  allowed  to  develop  in  their  natural  en- 
vironment. 

If  we  could  only  develop  the  large  vision  that  a  few 
progressive  and  public-spirited  men  are  already  show- 
ing, we  might  not  only  look  forward  to  a  vast  park 
area  in  our  own  county,  but  hope  to  see  it  a  part  of  a 
larger  area  which  would  include  a  section  of  Massa- 
chusetts and  New  York,  adjoining  the  Connecticut  area. 
Thus  might  be  developed  a  tri-State  park  and  forest 
reserve  unsurpassed  in  picturesqueness  and  beauty  by 
anything  south  of  the  White  Mountains. 


C'29] 


CHAPTER  XI 


A  PIONEER  IN'  AGRICULTUIL^L  EDUCATION 


OXNECTICUT  was  among  the  first  of 
he  States  to  promote  agricultural  edu- 

t^^^?j^  :ation.  Jared  Eliot  of  Killingworth, 
R^^v^, ^yj|W  Treacher,  physldan  and  farmer,  wrote 
^^^^^^!o^j  "'St  American  book  on  agriculture, 

hsia;.  i  Husbandry.*'  published  in   1747. 

Thougr.  ;:  in  the  held  among  the  institutions 

of  higher  education,  instruction  in  agricultural  science 
was  given  continuously  at  Yale  College  from  1848, 
when  the  first  Professor  of  Agricultural  Chemistry  was 
appointed,  down  to  the  early  nineties,  when  the  State 
Agricultural  College  was  established  at  Storrs. 

So  in  the  line  of  agricultural  schools  Connecticut  was 
a  pioneer,  as  probably  the  earliest  successful  farm 
school  in  this  country  was  the  one  established  by  Dr. 


PIONFFR  IN  ACRICULTURAL  KDL'CATION 

S.  \V.  Gold  and  his  son  Theodore.  Connecticut,  too, 
established  the  first  Agricultural  Experiment  Station 
in  America  in  1875.  The  movement  for  the  establish- 
ment of  this  institution  was  promoted  by  T.  S.  Gold 
from  the  first,  and  when  established  he  was  for  more 
than  twenty  years  a  member  of  its  board  of  control. 

The  Gold  estate  in  Cornwall  has  now  passed  into  the 
seventh  generation  in  the  direct  family  line,  and  this  fact 
of  itself,  together  with  the  increasing  value  of  the  prop- 
erty, makes  the  former  owner  and  the  farm  of  more 
than  passing  interest.  The  property  has  been  trans- 
mitted in  the  family  line  from  the  Douglas  ancestors 
who  cleared  the  land  from  the  forest.  In  the  Gold 
ancestn.-  may  be  found  such  names  as  Talcott,  Ruggles. 
Sedgwick,  Wadsworth  and  Cleveland,  representing 
strong  lines  tracing  back  to  colonial  days. 

Theodore  Sedgwick  Gold,  the  son  of  a  Connecticut 
physician  and  farmer,  was  born  March  2,  1818,  in 
Madison,  New  York.  While  yet  in  his  infancy,  his 
parents  moved  to  Goshen  in  Litchfield  County,  where 
Theodore  spent  most  of  his  boyhood.  In  1842  his 
father  gave  up  the  practice  of  medicine  and  removed 
to  the  ancestral  home  on  Cream  Hill,  West  Cornwall, 
where  he  and  Theodore  began  illustrious  careers  as 
agricultural  leaders  and  teachers. 

Graduating  from  Yale  College  in  1838,  young 
Gold  spent  the  next  four  years  in  teaching  and  study. 

C'3'] 


RURAL  LIFE  IN  LITCHFIELD  COUNTY 

Part  of  the  time  he  taught  in  Eagle  Academy,  Goshen, 
and  part  of  the  time  was  spent  in  scientific  studies  at 
Yale.  In  1845  he  and  his  father  opened  an  agricultural 
school  on  the  home  farm  in  West  Cornwall.  This 
school  was  continued  for  twenty-four  years  and  num- 
bered among  its  scholars  some  of  the  notable  men  of  the 
country.  Mr.  Gold  was  always  interested  in  the  natural 
sciences  and  took  up  special  studies  in  these  subjects  at 
college,  and  what  he  learned  from  his  father,  coupled 
with  a  wide  love  of  nature,  fitted  him  especially  as  an 
instructor  in  subjects  that  had  a  particular  bearing  on 
agriculture.  His  house,  throughout  his  life,  contained 
an  interesting  collection  of  specimens  of  minerals  and 
plants  of  his  own  collecting.  There  was  hardly  a  plant 
growing  on  his  large  estate  with  which  he  was  not  fa- 
miliar. His  garden,  too,  was  always  a  testing  ground 
for  new  fruits,  herbs  and  vegetables  that  might  be  of 
interest  or  of  value. 

The  school  was  not  managed  simply  as  a  training 
school  for  the  farm,  but  provided  that  all-round  train- 
ing sure  to  be  useful  in  any  walk  of  life.  Many  of 
the  students  went  to  college  and  later  became  men  of 
prominence  in  business  and  professional  life.  Manual 
labor  was  not  a  requirement,  but  Mr.  Gold  always 
spent  a  part  of  each  day  working  on  the  farm,  and  the 
boys  delighted  to  accompany  him  and  to  listen  to  his 
wise  counsel  and  his  practical  explanations. 


riUNKEK  IN  ACiKICL  LI  LKAl.  i;DLCAiI()X 

Perhaps  without  an  exception,  those  who  knew  Mr. 
Gold  best  will  agree  that  his  {greatest  achievement  was 
as  secretary  and  official  executive  of  the  Connecticut 
State  Board  of  Agriculture.  Though  not  the  first  board 
of  its  kind  in  New  England,  it  has  had  an  almost  con- 
tinuous and  a  very  useful  career  for  a  period  of  fifty 
years.  From  the  time  of  its  establishment  in  1866  for 
more  than  thirty  years,  Mr.  Gold  was  its  secretary  and 
the  guiding  force  that  shaped  its  policies.  Ilic  reports 
of  this  board  were,  for  many  years,  sought  by  students 
of  agriculture  in  all  parts  of  the  country,  as  a  source  of 
many  of  the  latest  teachings  in  the  science  of  agricul- 
ture. The  speakers  at  the  board  meetings,  whose  ad- 
dresses were  published  in  full,  stood  forth  as  exponents 
of  the  new  science  of  agriculture.  Mr.  Gold's  work,  as 
secretary  of  this  board,  was  the  chief  factor  in  leading 
farmers  of  the  State  to  accept  the  new  teachings  in  rela- 
tion to  agriculture,  which  at  first  were  regarded  with 
suspicion  or  indifference,  but  which  are  now  accepted 
and  used  by  nearly  all  farmers. 

I  he  winter  meeting  of  the  board  was  for  many  years 
the  chief  agricultural  event  of  the  year  in  the  State. 
The  program,  thoughtfully  and  logically  arranged, 
gave  the  audience  the  best  knowleilgc  and  thought  on 
scientific  and  practical  farming  and  home-making.  It 
was  characteristic  of  these  meetings  that,  each  year,  one 
leading  theme  ran  through  the  whole  program.     One 


RURAL  LIFE  IN  LITCHFIELD  COUNTY 

year  it  was  soil  fertility,  another  dairying,  again  dairy- 
farm  crops,  and  again  animal  or  plant  diseases. 
Enough  other  interesting  and  useful  material  was  in- 
corporated to  hold  the  attention  of  those  not  interested 
in  the  chief  line  of  discussion,  but  at  the  same  time  the 
concentration  was  on  one  chief  theme.  One  feature, 
which  was  new  to  early  agricultural  conventions,  was 
always  incorporated  and  adhered  to  by  Mr.  Gold  in  his 
programs.  That  was  to  have  at  least  one  address  by  a 
lady  speaker  of  state  or  national  reputation,  and  to  do 
everything  possible  to  interest  the  women  from  the 
farms  in  the  meetings  of  the  board. 

One  who  knew  Mr.  Gold  and  his  work  for  the  Board 
of  Agriculture  intimately  for  many  years,  says  of  his 
work  as  secretary:  "With  all  credit  to  the  speakers  and 
to  the  wisdom  of  Mr.  Gold's  associates,  I  believe  the 
chief  credit  for  all  the  work  of  the  board  belongs  to 
him.  He  was  the  executive  of  the  board  and  he  had  all 
the  qualities  which  a  secretary  needed:  thorough  educa- 
tion, intimate  farm  knowledge,  success  as  a  farmer, 
wide  personal  acquaintance  and  great  self-control  and 
tact." 

Mr.  Gold  was  always  interested  in  forestry.  The 
exhibit  of  natural  woods— sections  of  tree  trunks  with 
the  top  cut  so  as  to  show  a  sloping  section,  a  vertical 
section  and  a  transverse  section— collected  and  pre- 
pared at  his  instigation  for  the  Columbian  Exposition 


PIONKKR  IN  AGRICULTURAL  EDUCATION 

in  1893,  was  one  of  the  most  complete  shown  at  Chi- 
cago. Many  of  the  specimens  came  from  his  own  farm. 
Mr.  Gold  knew  every  variety  of  tree  that  was  native  to 
the  State,  and  so  knew  where  to  direct  the  collecting  if 
he  did  not  have  the  tree  on  his  own  farm.  He  was  in- 
strumental in  getting  the  present  forest  laws  of  Con- 
necticut passed,  and  was  interested  in  promoting  the 
forestry  work  of  the  State  Forestry  Association  and 
the  forestry  investigations  of  the  State  Experiment  Sta- 
tion. 

During  his  life  of  over  four-score  years  he  was  al- 
ways interested  in  developing  a  farm  that  would  pay  a 
profit  and  at  the  same  time  leave,  for  the  use  of  the  suc- 
ceeding generations,  a  soil  that  was  not  depleted  in 
fertility.  All  of  his  improvements  were  made  with  a 
\  iew  to  permanency.  More  than  fifty  years  ago  many 
stone  drains  were  laid  that  are  still  doing  good  work. 

Mr.  Gold  did  not  hesitate  to  diverge  from  the  usual 
system  of  farming  if  he  felt  he  had  a  plan  that  better 
fitted  his  farm.  I  well  remember  the  incredulity  shown 
by  some  of  the  audience  when  he  stated  at  one  of  the 
Board  of  Agriculture  meetings  that  he  had  fields  on  his 
farm  that  hail  not  been  plowed  for  o\er  one  hundred 
years,  but  had  been  mowed  annually  during  that  entire 
time.  On  visiting  his  farm  and  observing  the  con- 
ditions and  the  methods  used,  I  was  at  once  struck  with 
the  wisdom  of  the  system.     The  fields  in  question  were 


RURAL  LIFE  IN  LITCHFIELD  COUNTY 

naturally  well  supplied  with  moisture,  and  consisted  of 
a  hard  clay  loam  soil  rather  difficult  to  plow  but  well 
adapted  to  grass  and  clover.  In  keeping  these  meadows 
productive  Mr.  Gold  adopted  the  plan  of  liberal  top- 
dressing  with  stable  manure  and  the  sowing  of  clover 
seed,  either  every  year  or  every  second  year  early  in  the 
spring,  when  it  would  get  a  start  without  being  incor- 
porated with  the  soil.  While  the  yields  of  hay  obtained 
under  this  system  were  not  especially  heavy,  they  were 
always  good  and  the  labor  economy  of  the  system  made 
the  cost  of  hay  less  than  on  many  farms  that  produced 
much  more  to  the  acre,  but  at  the  same  time  required 
reseeding  every  few  years. 

While  Mr.  Gold  was  interested  in  diversified  farm- 
ing, his  most  prominent  work  was  in  fruit  culture, 
mainly  apple  orcharding.  From  the  earliest  days  of 
the  introduction  of  new  fruits,  he  was  interested  in 
testing  and  growing  whatever  would  add  to  the  comfort 
and  health  of  the  family.  In  fact,  this  was  true  of  all 
lines  of  products.  I  never  visited  a  farm  home  where 
more  of  the  food  products  of  the  table  were  supplied 
from  the  farm,  and  always  in  great  variety.  For  exam- 
ple, one  would  not  look  for  hot-house  grapes  of  the 
European  varieties  in  Connecticut  except  on  a  few  pri- 
vate estates  of  men  of  considerable  wealth,  and  yet, 
more  than  sixty  years  ago,  Mr.  Gold  grew  these  for 
home   consumption.      So   with   pears,   peaches,   plums, 

[^36;] 


PIOXKKR  IX  AGRICL  i;i  LiRAL  I-DUCATION 

gooseberries  and  strawlicrrics,  the  needs  ot  the  family 
were  always  considered  and  supplied  as  far  as  climatic 
conditions  for  the  culture  of  the  fruits  would  permit. 

At  the  present  time  (191 7)  there  are  commercial 
orchards  on  the  Gold  farm,  ranging  in  age  from  forty 
to  less  than  six  years.  Not  more  than  ten  years  prior  to 
Mr.  Gold's  death  he  was  interested  with  his  son  in 
planting  an  orchard  of  the  latest  commercial  varieties. 

Mr.  Gold,  no  doubt,  inherited  a  great  love  for  fruits. 
Nearly  one  hundred  and  fifty  years  before  his  death  his 
ancestors  planted  an  orchard  on  Cream  Hill,  the  story 
of  which  he  tells  in  his  "Reminiscences,"  published  in 
1901  : 

"As  for  fruits,  there  were  few  grafted  or  budded 
trees  at  the  beginning  of  the  century.  I  have  a  single 
tree,  a  Seeknofurther,  grafted  near  the  ground,  the  last 
survivor  of  an  orchard  which,  according  to  tradition, 
was  planted  by  my  great-grandmother.  Sarah  (Doug- 
las) Wadsworth,  in  her  early  married  life,  about  1760. 

"It  has  battled  with  the  storms  of  more  than  a  cen- 
tury, but  in  its  decadence  shows  much  vigor  and  bears 
choice  fruit,  which  the  sixth  generation  enjoys. 

"Who  would  not  plant  a  tree  with  such  possibilities?" 


[•37: 


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